CEVAP:

The failure of the League to prevent the Italian aggression marked a major blow to the organization. In fact, such crises only demonstrated the weakness of the League, because of the same reasons. First, the great powers were divided so that they were not able to collectively manage the post-war system. The US stayed away from the European diplomacy, and both Britain and France were too weak to counter the revisionist policies of Germany, Italy, and Japan. As it was obvious in the Ethiopian crisis, concessions further showed the weaknesses of the major powers and encouraged the revisionist countries to push their own agendas. Second, both the League and its members were disappointed by the British and French hypocrisy. This situation created a vast gap between the great and small powers and diminished the efficiency of the League. It clearly showed that the great powers prioritized their own self-interests over common interests. Therefore, the League was weakened by the absence of the great power support when the organization was in need of leadership. Third, proposals for strengthening the Covenant and collective security by middle and small states were neglected or rejected by the great powers. After the Ethiopian crisis, the optimism that sustained the League disappeared. The League proved ineffective in taking measures against Germany when it abrogated the Versailles Treaty. After 1936, Germany remilitarized the Rhineland by breaking the rules of the Treaty of Versailles and Locarno Pacts and annexed Austria as well as occupied Czechoslovakia. Hitler destroyed the post-war security arrangements in Europe which the League was supposed to oversee. Furthermore, Germany, Italy, and the Soviet Union intervened in the Spanish Civil War, whereas Japan invaded China. On all these occasions, the League remained ineffective or just stood idly. When Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, there was no application submitted to the League to investigate and take a decision on the issue. The politically important action was taken when Finland appealed to the League for the military assistance against the Soviet aggression in 1939: expelling the Soviet Union from the organization. During the course of World War II, the
activities of the League were interrupted, and neither the Assembly nor the Council held sessions. In the final years of the war, the idea for the establishment of a future international organization was on the Allies’ agenda. In fact, when the United Nations (UN) was established, the League still officially existed. The Assembly of the League held a final meeting in Geneva and declared that all its technical missions and properties were transferred to the recentlyestablished UN. With this declaration, the League officially ceased to exist on 16 April 1946.