IGCSE History

• Home
• Introduction to IGCSE
• The Road to Affluence: USA 1917 - 1941 (A9)
  • 1917 - 1929
    • The impact of the First World War
    • Immigration
    • Henry Ford and mass production
    • Farming in the 1920s
    • The Stock Market Boom
  • 1929 - 1941
    • The Wall Street Crash
    • The Depression
    • The policies of Hoover
    • Roosevelt and the New Deal
    • Reactions to the New Deal
• International Relations 1919-1939 (A8)
  • Collective Security
    • The Versailles Settlement
    • The Foundation of the League of Nations
    • Strengths and weaknesses of the League of Nations
    • Successes and failures of the League of Nations
    • Locarno and the Kellogg-Briand Pact
  • Appeasement
    • Manchuria
    • The Disarmament Conference
    • Abyssinia
    • Hitler and the League
    • Appeasement in action
• Revolution in China 1949 - 1996 (A14)
  • 1949 - 1976
    • China under Mao
    • Reform under Liu and Deng
    • The reasons for the Cultural Revolution
    • The impact of the Cultural Revolution
    • China 1971 - 1976
  • 1976 - 1996
    • The defeat of the Gang of Four
    • China under Deng Xiaoping
    • Reforms of the economy
    • The Democracy Movement
    • China in the 1990s
• South-East Asia 1945 - 1900 (A15)
  • Indo-China
    • The end of the French Empire
    • Vietnam 1954 - 1965
    • US involvement in Vietnam
    • The unification of Vietnam
    • Laos and Cambodia
  • South-East Asia
    • The struggle for control of Malaya
    • The creation of Malaysia
    • Singapore
    • Suharto and Indonesia
    • Sukarno and Pancasila
• Conflict and Crisis is the Middle East 1946 - 1996 (A16)
  • Unit overview
  • 1946 - 1967
    • The creation of Israel
    • The impact of the war of 1948 - 1949
    • The Suez Crisis
    • Superpower involvement in the Middle East
    • The Six Day War
  • 1967 - 1996
    • International terrorism
    • The war of Yom Kippur
    • The Palestinian Liberation Organisation
    • Lebanon and the occupied territories
    • Successes and failures from Camp David to Oslo
• The First World War (B4)
  • The Schlieffen Plan
  • Deadlock on the Western Front
  • Gallipoli
  • The Somme and Passchendaele
  • The War at Sea
  • The defeat of Germany
• The USA 1917-1929 (B7)
  • The Roaring Twenties
  • Advertising and consumerism
  • New forms of entertainment
  • Prohibition
  • Gangsterism
  • Hollywood
• China under Mao Zedong 1949 - 1959 (B10)
  • The creation of the Communist State
  • Land Reform
  • Communist society
  • The First Five Year Pan
  • The 100 Flowers
  • The Great Leap Forward
• The Changing Nature of Warfare (C3)
  • Unit overview
  • Warfare at the beginning of the 20th Century
  • Land warfare
  • Sea and aerial warfare
  • Atomic and nuclear weapons
  • Warfare at the end of the 20th Century
• Links

Strenghts and Weaknesses of the League of Nations

All of the leaders who signed the Covenant in 1919 had experienced the war and wanted to avoid any repetition.

At the beginning there was a great deal of good will to make the League work. The idea of ‘Collective Security’ was also very sound.

Russia was not allowed to join after the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917.

The USA did not join, even though the League was Woodrow Wilson's idea. Congress voted against membership.

Americans believed that the United States would be drawn into internal conflicts in other countries. Most people in the United States wanted to concentrate on domestic issues.

Germany was not allowed to join, but did become a member in 1926.

Italy broke the Covenant in 1923 when Mussolini occupied Corfu, which was owned by Greece. He was forced to back down but no sanctions were applied. A Permanent Council Member had been allowed to escape when it had broken the Covenant.

The League soon came to be seen as a club for the victors of the First World War and was mostly European.

Sir Eric Drummond, the Secretary-General, was a representative of one of the Permanent Members of the Council and this made countries outside Europe believe that the League was pro-European.

The League had no army; it had to rely on member countries declaring war on countries that broke the Covenant.

• The Versailles Settlement
• The Foundation of the League of Nations
• Strengths and weakneses of the League of Nations
• Successes and failures of the League of Nations
• Locarno and the Kellogg-Briand Pact

• Manchuria
• The Disarmament Conference
• Abyssinia
• Hitler and the League
• Appeasement in action

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