How Far Can the Failure of the League of Nations in the 1930s Be Blamed on the Great Depression? (10)

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How far can the failure of the League of Nations in the 1930s be blamed on the great depression? (10) After the initial optimism in the 1920s, the League of Nations faced a number of problems which resulted in the league becoming weaker and less respected which gradually led to its demise in 1946. It could be argued that this failure was due to the great depression because countries became more selfish and there was a rise of fascism and dictatorship which made it difficult for the league to achieve its aims of world peace and cooperation between countries, especially as the league weren’t following the rules themselves. On the other hand, there were many other contributing factors to the league’s failure such as the Manchurian crisis and the Abyssinian crisis due to the fact that both examples demonstrated the league’s weaknesses and indecisiveness. Therefore the failure of the league in the 1930s could be down to one or more of many factors. Firstly, the great depression contributed to the league’s failure as America traded with many nations therefore after the Wall Street crash, trade and industry worldwide was damaged. The stock market collapsed on the 29th of October 1927 which lead to the great depression which pulled many countries in to economic crisis and also lead to extremism, dictators and fascists in Japan, Italy and Germany as desperate times called for desperate measures. This therefore lead to the league’s failure because countries became more selfish such as Japan as it defied the league and consequently left the league for personal gain of China which made it even more difficult for the league to achieve its aims of world peace as Japan attacked Manchuria in 1931. The depression also made countries less likely to cooperate as they began to ignore the league following the defiant precedent made by Japan. The depression also meant that countries
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