The League of Nations Practice Questions

Study Source A below, then answer the question.

Source A: From an article in a magazine published in Britain in 1925 by a society that campaigned for public support for the League of Nations.

Written for practice: not a real historical source.

Those who say that the League only talks should look at the work of its committees. Its Commission for Refugees has helped hundreds of thousands of prisoners of war to reach their homes again since 1920. Its Health Committee is working to halt epidemics such as malaria and typhus before they cross frontiers. The International Labour Organisation has persuaded governments to ban poisonous white lead from paint, and the Opium Board is attacking the illegal trade in drugs. Governments may quarrel in the Assembly; but at Geneva the everyday life of ordinary people is quietly being improved, year by year.

Study Source A below, then answer the question.

Source A: From a letter printed in a British newspaper in September 1928, written by a member of the League of Nations Union, a society that campaigned for disarmament and for a League able to enforce its decisions, after the signing of the Kellogg-Briand Pact in Paris.

Written for practice: not a real historical source.

Fifteen governments have put their names to a paper in Paris promising to give up war as a way of settling their quarrels. Everyone is delighted. I am not. The pact says nothing whatever about what is to be done when a signature is broken: there is no court, no sanction, no force behind it — only a promise. Each government has been careful to keep its right to fight in self-defence, and every aggressor since the world began has claimed to be defending itself. Meanwhile the same governments go on voting money for battleships and bombers.

Study Sources B and C below, then answer the question.

Source B: From an editorial in a British newspaper, 12 October 1935, published nine days after Italian forces invaded Abyssinia.

Written for practice: not a real historical source.

The Covenant is now on trial. Italy has attacked a fellow member of the League without warning and without provocation, and nearly fifty nations have said so plainly. Sanctions must follow, and they must bite. If the League will not stop the sale to Italy of the oil and coal without which her lorries and aircraft cannot move, then its condemnation will be no more than words on paper, as it was over Manchuria. Opinion in this country is overwhelmingly behind the League. Our government should not shelter behind the excuse that firmness is dangerous.

Source C: From a private letter written by a senior official in the French foreign ministry to a colleague, 16 December 1935, after details of the Hoare–Laval plan appeared in the French press.

Written for practice: not a real historical source.

The outcry in London and Paris is understandable, but those who shout loudest offer no plan of their own. Our proposals would have ended the fighting at once and left the Emperor a kingdom. To press Italy further — to cut off her oil, or to close the Suez Canal to her ships — would drive Mussolini straight into the arms of Berlin, at the very moment when Germany is rearming and France needs every friend she can find. France cannot face Hitler alone. The Covenant is a fine thing, but it will not defend us.

Study Sources B and C below, then answer the question.

Source B: From a letter sent by an official of the Lithuanian government to the editor of a British newspaper, November 1920, a few weeks after Polish troops seized the city of Vilna.

Written for practice: not a real historical source.

Two years ago our nation was given its independence, and we were told that from now on disputes would be settled by discussion and not by armies. In October Polish troops marched into Vilna, our capital, and they remain there. We appealed to the League of Nations at Geneva. Its officials have been courteous; they have sent telegrams and have proposed a plebiscite. Meanwhile the soldiers do not leave. A small state has no coal, no money and no army with which to make itself heard. We ask the British public whether the new Europe is to be governed by the Covenant or by whoever is strongest.

Source C: From a report prepared for the members of the Assembly of the League of Nations, 1922, describing the League's work in settling disputes between states.

Written for practice: not a real historical source.

The Covenant has already been tested, and it has worked. When Sweden and Finland both claimed the Aaland Islands, the Council examined the case and awarded the islands to Finland, with guarantees for the Swedish-speaking islanders; both governments accepted the decision and not a shot was fired. In Upper Silesia, where Germans and Poles live side by side, a plebiscite was held and the Council then divided the province between the two countries. States that have only just drawn their frontiers now have somewhere to bring their quarrels. Patience and open discussion, not armies, are the instruments of the new Europe.