The League of Nations

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 375.

The League of Nations was an international organization founded after World War I to prevent future wars. The League's methods included disarmament; preventing war through collective security; settling disputes between countries through negotiation diplomacy; and improving global welfare.

The diplomatic philosophy behind the League represented a fundamental shift in thought from the preceding hundred years. The old philosophy, growing out of the Congress of Vienna (1815), saw Europe as a shifting map of alliances among nation-states, creating a balance of power maintained by strong armies and secret agreements. Under the new philosophy, the League was a government of governments, with the role of settling disputes between individual nations in an open and legalist forum.

The League lacked an armed force of its own and so depended on the members to enforce its resolutions, to keep to economic sanctions which the League ordered, or provide an army, when needed, for the League to use. However, they were often very reluctant to do so. After numerous notable successes and some early failures in the 1920s, the League ultimately proved incapable of preventing aggression by the Axis Powers in the 1930s. The absence of the U.S., the reliance upon unanimous decisions, the lack of an armed force, and the continued self-interest of its leading members meant that this failure was arguably inevitable.

1) What were the warring parties in World War I?

2) Name reasons for the entry into World War I of:

· Russia

· Britain

· France

· The United States

3) What made the USA break its neutrality and enter World War I?

4) What events made Russia drop out of the war?

5) Who was the greatest economic beneficiary of the war? Why?

6) What were the most controversial provisions in the Treaty of Versailles?

7) Why did Germans of all political shades denounce the Treaty?

8) What factors that led to the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler?

9) Prove that Germany was not pacified or conciliated, nor permanently weakened by the Treaty.

10) What was the main objective of the League of Nations?

11) Explain reasons for the failure of the League of Nations.

TEXT 3. Read the text and fulfill the tasks after it.