The First World War brought unprecedented disasters to mankind. How to prevent wars and maintain world peace has aroused widespread concern. American President Wilson took advantage of this trend and wrote the proposal of establishing an international alliance into his "fourteen points" plan. 19 19 In April, the Paris Peace Conference adopted the Treaty of the League of Nations, and in October, 1920 10, the League of Nations was formally established. ?

The League of Nations has played an important role in the development of world history: it advocates the settlement of international disputes through democratic consultation, which conforms to the development trend of world democratization and integration; It has achieved remarkable results in dealing with international health, economic and humanitarian issues. In maintaining world peace, the League of Nations has made some achievements, but the achievements are not great. From 1920 to 1939, the Council of the League of Nations handled 66 international disputes, some of which were handled quickly and smoothly. However, the League of Nations failed to prevent or postpone the outbreak of World War II. The main reasons are as follows:

First, what are the shortcomings of the League of Nations mechanism?

1. The League of Nations lacks a legal and effective security mechanism. The League of Nations only defined "maintaining peace and security" abstractly. The Treaty of the League of Nations did not declare war illegal. It only prohibits member States from participating in the war under certain conditions. The League of Nations requires member countries to undertake the obligation not to resort to force when settling international disputes, but it does not completely prohibit resorting to war. Not participating in the war can only be a voluntary commitment of its member States. Aggressive countries can often use "self-defense" as an excuse to avoid war responsibility. For example, the non-war convention signed by 1928 was originally a treaty signed by big countries to limit war. It is precisely because the League of Nations does not have a clear prohibition clause on war that big countries put forward various reservation conditions when signing the Non-War Convention. For example, Britain claims that it will continue to maintain freedom of movement in some special areas of the world, and France proposes that the Convention on Non-War shall not damage France's right to legitimate self-defense. [2] The reason why signatory countries reserve various conditions is actually to wage war in the future to protect their own interests. ?

In addition, the League of Nations lacks the ability to maintain peace. It has no international troops to keep peace under centralized leadership, and it has no coercive force to stop aggression. The voting procedure of the League of Nations means that all resolutions must be unanimously adopted, and any decision is not binding on a country without its consent. In this way, any country can use the veto to oppose any measures to consolidate peace and put on a legitimate coat for aggression. This makes it impossible for the League of Nations to effectively exercise its authority and effectiveness as a general international organization.

2. The League of Nations is manipulated by second-rate countries such as Britain and France, and the United States and the Soviet Union, which have world influence, have been out of the League of Nations for a long time, which makes the League of Nations have low international authority and limited strength. After the First World War, the power balance of imperialist countries has changed obviously. Britain and France became second-class powers, but the important power of the League of Nations was mainly controlled by Britain and France. The Soviet Union only joined the League of Nations in 1934- 1939 and became a short-lived member of the League of Nations. The United States, the founder of the League of Nations, did not join the League of Nations. It can be said that a world-wide international organization is very incomplete without the participation of big countries like the United States and the Soviet Union. In this sense, the League of Nations has always lacked the universality that a world organization must have, so it can't really play the role of justice, equality and peace.

Second, the conflict of diplomatic strategies of great powers weakens the possibility of concerted action by the League of Nations?

Britain and France, as two important forces of the League of Nations, have two completely different understandings of the European pattern after World War I. Britain is trying to restore its traditional "balanced diplomacy" and continue to exercise its leading role in European affairs. To this end, Britain adopted the policy of "supporting Germany and restraining France" to contain France's strength and eliminate its potential threat. After World War I, the political situation in France was turbulent. In order to relive its history of dominating Europe, France's first task is to prevent its neighbors, especially Germany, from becoming powerful. Therefore, at the beginning of the establishment of the League of Nations, France tried to sanction Germany by promoting the League of Nations. For example, on the issue of German reparations, France put forward more demanding requirements. When Germany was unable to pay reparations according to the requirements of the agreement, France even sent troops to Germany, which triggered the famous 1923 Ruhr crisis in history. Britain, on the other hand, took advantage of this crisis to seize the dominance of reparations, handed reparations to itself and Americans, and adopted the "Dawes Plan" to support Germany economically, so that the seeds of revenge planted in Versailles could germinate. ?

The differences and conflicts between Britain and France determine that they are at best allies of unfamiliar strange bedfellows. When France wants to unite with Britain to check Germany, Britain is considering how to use Germany to check France. 1925, Germany joined the League of Nations with the support of Britain, Italy and other countries, and gained considerable freedom and equal status in international relations. Britain gained a favorable position to balance European power with the least obligation, and achieved the goal of containing France to support Germany and engaging in balanced diplomacy in Europe. [8] Although France expanded its security line in Eastern Europe, it actually lost the right to dispose of Germany at will. ?

Faced with Britain's non-cooperative policy and the weakness of its own strength, France had no choice but to follow Britain in the mid-1920s. By the 1930s, France basically had no independent foreign policy of its own. France followed Britain on the road of appeasement policy. What Britain and France did gradually deviated from the purpose of the League of Nations. The cover-up and connivance of Britain and France to the aggressor countries made the League of Nations sanction aggression a mere formality, which provided a good international environment for the development and growth of fascist forces, and the outbreak of the Second World War was just around the corner. ?

What the League of Nations did destroyed its prestige?

The League of Nations claims to "promote international cooperation and safeguard international peace and security", but it is actually a tool for imperialism to re-carve up colonies and enslave the world. With the participation of the League of Nations, the Hungarian Soviet Republic was strangled by imperialist forces. In addition, the League of Nations appointed specific countries to rule the colonies and territories of Germany and Ottoman Turkish Empire before the war in the form of mandate. The mandated powers colonized the mandated areas, obstructed national independence, and made the League of Nations the most reactionary fortress for maintaining colonial rule.

Throughout the 1920s, the League of Nations made constant efforts in the peaceful settlement of international disputes, but in fact it rarely succeeded. For example, in 1920, the League of Nations did not play any important role in the conflict between Poland and Lithuania for Werner and its provinces. Another example is 1932- 1935 When the Chaco War broke out in Bolivia and Paraguay, the League of Nations basically did nothing but propose an arms embargo. ?

The establishment of the League of Nations is actually to ensure the vested interests of the victorious countries after World War I, and its general purpose is to maintain the pattern and order of the Versailles system that is beneficial to the victorious countries. Therefore, when the international disputes it handled were caused by the aggressive and war policies of imperialist countries, the so-called peaceful activities of the League of Nations not only failed, but also were proved by later history that they often paved the way for imperialist aggression.

Italy's invasion of Corfu Island in Greece was the first international security issue directly related to a big country, and the performance of the League of Nations was representative. 1923 in August, Italian general Tellini and his military entourage were ambushed and killed in Greece. Mussolini's government used this as an excuse to put forward an ultimatum to the Greek government that was detrimental to Greece's reputation and sovereignty. Greece refused to fully implement it, so Italy sent troops to occupy Corfu, Greece. Greece asked the Council of the League of Nations to settle the dispute fairly, while Italy insisted that the Ambassadors' Meeting put forward measures to deal with the aftermath of the victims, but made no mention of solving the Corfu problem (the Ambassadors' Meeting is an institution composed of four countries: Britain, France, Italy and Japan). Regardless of the opinions of many countries, the ambassadors' meeting took action to force Italy to withdraw its troops and favor Italy. Among them, in exchange for Italy's support for France's occupation of Ruhr, France made various excuses for Italy's aggression.

The League of Nations Council made concessions to the Ambassadors' Meeting, and finally put forward the Kun Garnes Plan, which forced the Greeks to make concessions and made the weak countries suffer unfair diplomatic humiliation. Corfu Island incident fully shows that the League of Nations completely succumbed to the hegemonic demands of imperialist powers when mediating disputes between powerful countries and weak countries, and also shows that the League of Nations is not only weak but also incompetent in dealing with aggression. Corfu Island incident dealt a severe blow to the prestige of the League of Nations. On the one hand, the big countries trampled on the sovereignty of the weak countries by force, and the League of Nations not only failed to provide protection for the weak countries, but urged them to fully meet the demands of the aggressors. On the other hand, in dealing with Corfu Island, the League of Nations succumbed to the Ambassadors' Meeting, which damaged its authority in handling international disputes in the future. ?

193 1 "9? 9? 9 18 "event. In response to this incident, the League of Nations called on the Chinese and Japanese governments to stop all conflicts and withdraw their troops, but there was no clear deadline for withdrawal. [13] At the same time, the evacuation of the Japanese army is conditional on the effective protection of the lives and property of Japanese nationals by the Chinese side. This is a decision that does not even distinguish between the aggressor and the victim. This kind of protection and appeasement of Japan by the League of Nations has enabled Japan to expand its military operations unscrupulously. And the league of nations in "9? 9? The handling of the "9 18" incident further damaged its prestige and image in international affairs.

The above two examples set a bad precedent for the League of Nations. However, in the events of 1936 when Italy invaded Ethiopia, 1936- 1939 when German and Italian fascists intervened in the Spanish civil war, and 1937 when Japan launched a full-scale war of aggression against China, the League of Nations showed weakness and compromise, which made its serious defects in the field of international security more and more obvious. [14] On the eve of World War II, with Japan, Italy, Germany and other countries withdrawing from the League of Nations, the League of Nations gradually disintegrated. 1April, 946 18, the member states attending the meeting of the League of Nations voted unanimously to declare that the League of Nations ceased to exist the next day. ?