Europe and WWII — the League and the road to war

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The Assembly (all members, annual meeting), the Council (permanent + rotating members, handled crises), the Secretariat (administration), and special agencies (e.g. the International Labour Organization).

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The USA never joined; it had no standing army of its own; and Council decisions generally needed unanimous agreement, making fast action very difficult.

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Sweden and Finland both claimed the islands; the League awarded them to Finland with protections for Swedish-speakers, and both sides accepted the ruling — a genuine League success.

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Poland seized Vilnius from Lithuania; the League condemned it but could not force Poland to withdraw, showing its limits even against smaller states.

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Italy bombarded and occupied the Greek island of Corfu after an Italian general was murdered; Mussolini bypassed the League and settled it through the Conference of Ambassadors on his own terms.

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Italy invaded Abyssinia (Ethiopia); the League imposed sanctions that excluded oil, coal and steel, and Britain/France secretly tried to give Mussolini much of the territory via the Hoare-Laval Pact — Italy completed its conquest by May 1936.

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It revealed that Britain and France were secretly willing to reward Italy's aggression rather than enforce collective security, undermining trust in the League when it leaked to the public.

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A policy of giving in to some demands of an aggressive power in order to avoid war, associated especially with Neville Chamberlain in the 1930s.

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Britain, France, Germany and Italy agreed Germany could annex the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia, without Czechoslovakia being present — in exchange for Hitler's promise of no further territorial demands.

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A non-aggression treaty between Germany and the USSR with a secret protocol dividing Poland and Eastern Europe into spheres of influence, freeing Hitler from a two-front war fear before invading Poland.

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Rhineland remilitarised (1936) → Rome-Berlin Axis (1936) → Anschluss with Austria (March 1938) → Munich Agreement/Sudetenland (Sept 1938) → rest of Czechoslovakia seized (March 1939) → Nazi-Soviet Pact (Aug 1939) → invasion of Poland (1 Sept 1939) → Britain/France declare war (3 Sept 1939).

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Both showed the same pattern: strong condemnation (Lytton Report for Manchuria) but no effective enforcement, so Japan and Italy both simply left or ignored the League and kept their conquests.