Question:
Why did the League of Nations fail to maintain peace in the 1930s?
One of the reasons the league of nations (LON) failed to maintain peace in the 1930's was due to the LON's weaknesses and limitations an example of this is the fact that the LON didn't have an army this meant they were unable to enforce any of their actions, this can be seen in the way they were unable to deal with the Manchurian crisis, we can see that because Russia wasn't part of the LON that meant that many members were unable and reluctant to send their armies so far, but if Russia had been a member the LON could have requested they send troops to China. This also demonstrates another issue that many of the larger countries such as the USSR and the USA were not part of the LON this meant that if another country received economic sanctions they still had the option of trading with either the USA or the USSR this completely undermined the LON once again showing that their weaknesses such as not having big countries part of the LON and having no army led to the LON being unable to maintain the peace in the 1930's
Another reason the LON failed to maintain the peace in the 1930's was because many of the more prominent members had their own agendas this was clear to see, that when the Great Depression hit many main countries such as Britain and France were too focused on their own countries well- beings to contribute to the LON. This lost morale as it showed everyone else that some of the main members weren't even that invested, another reason the own agendas affected the LON is because when in certain crisis's such as the Abyssinian crisis some main members chose to betray the smaller countries (Abyssinia) by catering towards the bigger ones (Italy) , as we can see in the way Britain and France didn't want to totally condemn Italy as they still needed Mussolini to be on their side if it came to a war, which many historians argue ultimately ended the LON. So that's why the main members of the LON having agendas prevented the LON being able to maintain the peace in the 1930's.
So in conclusion the weaknesses and limitations of the LON prevented them from maintaining peace in the 1930's as they allowed pathways for other countries to undermine the LON rulings and larger countries private agendas prevented the LON from maintaining the peace by removing the trust from the LON and interfering with their judgment.