Essay

We had to make an essay answering this question: how far was the league of nations successful in the 1920’s

This is the essay

In this essay I’m going to analyze how far was the League of Nations successful in the 1920’s

First of all on the 1920’s Poland and Lithuania wanted the control of Vilna, which was the capital city of Lithuania but its population, was larger polish. Because of that the polish army took control of it. Lithuania asked for help to the league and because of it the league was stucked. French and British had to send troops but the French weren’t ready to force the troops out of Vilna and Britain wasn’t ready to act alone and send troops t the other side of Europe so the Poles kept Vilna.

Secondly “Britain and France and drew up the Geneve protocol in 1924, which said that if two members of the league were in dispute they would have to accept the council’s decision” (Extract from the book GCSE modern world history) they hoped this decision would strength the league. But before the plan was put in action there was a general election in Britain. The new government refused to sign it because they were worried that they would force Britain to agree in something it was not in it’s own interests. So the protocol which was made to strength the league in fact weakened it.

Thirdly on 1921 Germany and Poland wanted control of Upper Silesia which was a rich industrial region on the border between Germany and Poland which was inhabitated and they wanted it because of  its rich iron and steel industry. In 1920 there was a plebiscite. The urban areas mainly voted for Germany and the rural areas for Ploand so the league divided the region in this lines but it built many safeguards to prevent future disputes. Both countries accepted the decision.

Fourth on the Aaland Islands there was a dispute because Sweden and Finland wanted control of them and both countries would have fought for them. They asked for help to the league and after studying the matter closely they gave them to Finland. Sweden accepted.

Fifth on the 27 of august Tellini (Italian general who supervised the border between Greece and Albania) and his team were ambushed and killed while they were supervising. The Italian lider was very angry so he demanded compensation to Italy and execute the murderers. The Greeks didn’t know who the murderers were so they couldn’t execute them. Italy bombarded Corfu. 15 people died. The league decided that Greece would pay compensation to Italy when the murderers were found. Mussolini accepted the decision.

Sixth two years after Corfu Greek troops invaded Bulgaria after an incident on the frontier were Greek soldiers were killed. The league ordered Greece to pull out and pay compensation to Bulgaria. The Greeks accepted and they thought that the league was treating different bigger countries and small ones giving advantages to the big ones

In conclusion the league could solve most of the cases (five of seven cases were solved) so the league was very successful in the 1920’s