history
treaty of versailles
Germany had to exept their punishment and had to take all the blame for the war this was humiliating
reparations: a bill that Germany had to pay in this case 6.6 million pounds
German representatives were forced to sign the treaty
German territories and colonies: Germany had to give up land / territories as part of the treaty
USA didn't want to punish them because they didn't want to start a world war and they saw it as Europes problem
Germany's armed forces : Germany's over seas army were destroyed and where only allowed 100,000 men in their army
England didn't want much from germany but they did want to keep trading so tried to keep it from being terrible
League of Nations : this was a group of countries to keep peace but germany wasn't allowed to join until they could show that they were a peaceful loving country
France wanted to punish Germany so wanted land, money, no German army , and wanted revenge for the damage Germany created
Germany had to give 10%of its land in Europe , they also lost 12.5% of its population and they had to give up 16% of their iron and steel industry ( economical damage )
germany wasn't invited
German army reduced to 100,000 men ( humiliating they also had no Air Force and a small navy)
politicly icolated , felt like they shouldn't have been treated as a war loosing country
fair
25% of the russian population where taken and 70% of there industry
they made russia pay 6.6 billion so worse than what germany had to pay
Germany made Russia do worse
they dissipated france
they failed to raise money for the war so self inflicted
Germany were convinced they were going to win
unfair
they only had 100,000 men in their army
they were FORCED to sign the treaty
germanys navy were reduced to 6 ships
their army was dismembered
had to accept the guilt of the war
hit national pride
had to pay 6.6 million
league of nations
BACKGROUND: discourage aggression from any nation , Encourage countries to co-operate especially in business and trade , Encourage nations to disarm , Improve the living and working conditions of people in all parts of the world , all nations invited to join eccept those countries defeated in ww1 and the USSR because it was communist , the first meeting involved 42 nations apart from USA as there new president didn't want to be dragged into Europes business
USA: even though it was Willson idea some feared that the league would be dominated by Britain and France , others feared that joining the league meant sending US soldiers to settle ever little conflict around the world
after the First World War everyone wanted to avoid repeating the mass slaughter of war. Willson wanted this to be like a world parliament David Lloyd George wanted it to be a simple organisation and France proposed a strong league with its own army , The point of the league was so if they had a dispute with another country they would take it to the league instead of another war
The aimes from the League of Nations are: to ultimately create peace and to be able to trade with all countries there is also to be like a parliament and to have an army for the league but all countries to disarm.
The league structure :
THE INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANISATION (ILO): the ILO brought together employers government and work representatives , its aim was to improve the conditions of working people through the world , it collected statistics and information about working conditions and how to improve them and it tried to persuade members countries to adopt its suggestions
THE MANDATES COMMISSIONS: the First World War had led to many former colonies of Germany and her allies ending up as League of Nations mandates ruled by Britain and France on behalf of the league
THE PERMENTENT COURT OF INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE : the court was based on The Hague in the Netherlands and was made up of judges from the member countries , This was meant to play a key role in the league's work by settling disputes between countries however the court had no way of making sure that countries followed the rules
THE SLAVERY COMMISSION: this commission worked to abolish slavery around the world in as many countries as possible
THE SECRETARIAT : the secretariat was a sort of civil service serving all the other bodies within the league , it kept record of the league's meetings and prepared reports , the secretariat had a key role in bringing together experiments from across the world on key issues such as health.
THE REFUGEES COMMISSIONS: at the end of the First World War there were hundreds of thousands of refugees who had fledfrom the areas of conflict
THE ASSEMBLY: this was the leagues 'parliament' , every country had a representative , the assembly could recommendation to the council , it could admitting new members to the league , only met once a year , desicions made by the assembly had to be unanimous they had to be agreed by all the members of the assembly
THE HEALTH COMMITTEE : the health committeeattempted to deal with the problem of dangerous disease and educate people about health and sanitation
THE COUNCIL : the council was a smaller group than the assembly witch met around 5 times a year sometimes more often depending on the disputes. permanent members in 1920 its Britain ,Italy, france and Japan , temporary members where elected by the assembly every 3 years each of the members had veto ( if one member disagreed it didn't happen ) economic and financial sanctions if a member could refuse to trade with the aggressor
military force armed forces could be used on the aggressor
THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS COMMISSIONS !
DISPUTES
VILNA POLISH-LITHUANIAN DISPUTE 1920-29: Poland took control of the capital ; vilna the poles didn't pull out and it was a failure because Britain and France weren't prepared to act so this failed because they didn't manage to deal with the problem at hand
UPPER SILESIAN SETTLEMENT 1921: the league over saw a peaceful plebiscite ( vote) and divided the region between Germany and Poland this was a success as both countries accepted the decision.
AALAND ISLANDS - between Finland and Sweden - it was a border dispute and the league favoured Finland but overall it was a success because they avoided conflict and sweeten accepted the decision
1920s
1924 THE DAWES PLAN: to avert a terrible economic crisis in Germany the USA lent money to Germany to help them pay the repreations
1925 LOCARNO TREATIES: Germany accepted its western borders as set out in The treaty of Versailles , this was greeted with great enthusiasm especially in france , it pathed the way for Germany to join the league of nations
1922 RAPALLO : the USSR and Germany re-established diplomatic relations.
1928 KELLOGG-BRIAND PACT: 65 nations agreed not to use force to settle disputes, this is also known as the pact of paris
1921 WASHINGTON CONFERENCE: usa,britain,france and Japan agreed to limit the size navies
1929 YOUNG PLAN : this reduced Germany's repreation payment
THE DEPRESSION
GERMANY: the depression hit germany badly there was unemployment poverty and chaos , Germany's weak leaders seemed unable to do anything ,as a result Germans elected Adolf Hitler to lead them , he was not good news for international peace , he openly planned to invade Germany's neighbours and to win back land that Germany had lost in the great war
JAPAN : the depression threatened to bankrupt Japan , its main export was silk to the USA but the USA was buying less silk , so Japan had less money to buy food and raw materials , its leaders were all army generals , they decided to build an empire by taking over weaker countries that had the raw materials they needed so they invaded Manchuria
BRITAIN: Britain was one of the leaders of the league but alike the USA it was unwilling to help sort out international disputes while its economy was bad for example when Japan invaded manchuria
ITALY: in italy economic problems encouraged Mussolini ( leader) to try build an overseas empire to distract peoples attention from the difficulties the government faced
THE USA : one way that the League of Nations could stop one country invading another was to use economical sanction , but the depression made the USA unwilling to help in this because economical sanctions would make there own economy even worse
MANCHURIAN CRISIS
the league investigates ; they were going to sail to china to see how bad the situation was
innovation 2; instead with from Manchuria the Japanese announced that they intended to invade more of china
china appealed to the league
the league responded,; the league was powerless ,it disscussed economic sanctions with ought the trades everyone was meaningless
invation1; Japan take over Manchuria because they want money and an empire they also need the economical help
consequences; all sorts of excuses were given to the failure of this situation!
Background ; by 1920s Japan was a major power
the Japanese then left the league making them look very weak
DISSARMENT FAILED 1930
SEPTEMBER: The British sent the germans a note that went some way to agreeing equality but the superior tone of the note angered the germans still further
DECEMBER : a agreement was finally reached to treat germany equally
JULY 1932; germany proposed all countries disarm to its level , when the conference failed to agree this principle of equality the germans walked out
JANUARY : germany announced it was coming back to the conference
TIMELINE
FEBRUARY: hitler became chancellor germany at the end of January , he immediately started to rearm germany secretly
the problems with these was that the members were worried about the reproductions of this as they couldn't guarantee that every one was going to keep to there word
MAY: hitler promised not to rearm germany
JUNE: Britain produced an ambitious disarmament plan
OCTOBER: Germany leave the disarmament conference and then the League all together
Britain and germany secretly were talking , germany were rebuilding their navy and Britain knew and allowed it as long as it stayed under 35% of the size of the British navy
the resolutions : prohibit bombing of civilian population , limit the size of artillery , limit the tonnage of tanks and prohibit chemical well fair
the conference occurred February 1932 and in July 1932 there was a resolution
after the Manchurian crisis the league realised the importance of disarmament so they held a disarmament conference