Briana M. Silva
Ms. Lenaghan
IB History II
September 12, 2011
Depression and Threats to International Peace and Collective Security: Manchuria 1931-3 and Abyssinia 1935-6
o The Impact of the Great Depression
o The Great Depression is the single greatest reason for the collapse of international peace.
o It led to aggression and the collapse of international co-operation.
o The Manchurian crisis exposed both the League of Nations and collective security as hollow concepts.
o Important factors: resentment for Germany
o Two crises that caused L of N to collapse on itself and labeled as a failure Abyssinia and Manchuria. L of N was nothing more than a show organization.
o It brought Hitler to power and undermined the Geneva disarmament talks.
o It weakened the UK and France.
o This made it possible for Mussolini to engage in aggression in Africa ending hopes for preserving peace.
o Great Depression helped Hitler come to power. People lost everything.
o Wall Street crash was not the cause of the Depression. No money, extremely angry. Look to someone who promises a better life, and this is how Hitler was able to rise in power.
o The great depression was a huge factor in Hitler coming to power.
o Countries are concerned with fixing things at home. Mussolini and Hitler did what they wanted unopposed.
o Hitler took stimulants, amphetamines. During the WW2, kamikaze went into American ships.
o WW2 loss of life in civilians.
o WW2 cemented the USA as a world power, and weakened the UK and France.
o Impact of Depression on International Relations
o The causes of the Great Depression are not the focus but how it influenced international relations.
o The Great Depression had an impact on events in Manchuria and Abyssinia.
o It also had an impact on the ability of the world to continue seeking peace and harmony.
o The Great Depression
o It was not caused by the Wall Street crash of 1929 this was a signal that it had arrived.
o The roots can be found in the weakened states of many nations after WW1, in particular Germany and the UK.
o The turmoil in the USSR and Eastern Europe had further weakened trade and world markets.
o The burden of war-debts, government deficits, and the political and social turmoil caused by WW1 all played a role.
o Germany owed money and so did the UK.
o Devastation
o The Depression devastated the spirit of the world.
o It resulted in a terrible struggle to survive by any means.
o Nations were no longer willing to co-operate through trade and exchange.
o Survival of the fittest.
o US sending money to Germany, this all ended.
o Democratic states
o Countries adopted a bomb-shelter mentality.
o They cut off contact with their neighbors, raised tariffs and cared little for affairs outside of their own borders.
o This insular attitude was worse in the democratic countries.
Briana M. Silva
Ms. Lenaghan
IB History II
September 13, 2011
o Insular Democracies
o Citizens demanded that their governments give money to domestic problems and ignore the problems of the world.
o No resources and energy should be wasted on international agreements or enforcing them.
o Domestic hardship was to be the focus not armaments to control aggressive foreign states.
o The end of peace due to necessity, people were starving. Forefront of America, people are literally starving, yet billions are spent on fighting expensive wars in the 1930’s and today.
o Wars, disagreements, were at the time seemingly minor. Problems are home were the priority, building armies.
o Aggressive foreign states
o Those who were driven to extremes of hardship saw war as a solution to their problems.
o Japan’s attack on Manchuria was an example of this.
o The Japanese argued that without Manchuria they would starve- it was every nation for himself.
o In Japan, Japan was hit hard by the Great depression. Rather than improving things at home, Japan wanted to boost morale at home and improve revenues and create money, they went to war. The Japanese would invade Manchuria to try and boost morale in the country and take over an area where they would get an ample supply of food and rice. Without the invasion of Manchuria, they would starve, survival of the fittest, needing the food that this land has.
o Japanese were trying to build an empire by invading Manchuria.
o Hitler
o The Great Depression, more than any other reason, brought Hitler to power.
o His primary goal was the destruction of the Versailles settlement by whatever means.
o His solution to economic weakness was to advocate Lebensraum- territorial expanses to seize resources. Lebensraum was to destroy the Versailles settlement.
o Hitler’s aim was the same as the Japanese. Germany was economically weak, he would build a powerful army, and expand German territory to gain the natural resources of other countries.
o Versailles was still fresh in the German minds, and Hitler had a solution to destroy the Versailles settlement, and bring Germany to what it had once been.
o Hitler was able to come to power to desperate people.
o Great Depression- International Peace
o It is important to understand the impact of the Depression on the efforts to maintain world peace.
o It is the single greatest reason for the collapse of the previous efforts to develop international understanding and co-operation.
o It destroyed the economic welfare of the world.
o Countries were desperate to improve things at home, and believed the best way to do this was to invade small countries, which was AGAINST the League of Nations.
o The Great Depression resulted in the complete collapse of the League of Nations.
o Destroyed Spirit
o It also destroyed the optimism created by Locarno, Kellogg-Briand (between Briand of France and the U.S. which was agreement where Germany was put back to its post-war status, to co-operate internationally and peace), the League of Nations, and other attempts at international co-operation.
o These progressive idealistic agreements were forgotten or ignored in the selfish, cynical world of the 1930’s.
o Survival of the fittest was becoming the order of the day.
o League Failure
o The Depression created the reason for aggression in the Manchurian crisis.
o It also took away the ability and motivation of nations to work together to preserve the peace.
o The League and its founding principle of collective security was exposed as a hollow idea unable to guarantee a peaceful future.
o Weakness
o The powers that had pledged to uphold collective security were now even less likely to stand behind it and had no desire to do so.
o The Depression seriously weakened GB and France who had tried to defend Versailles and the precepts of the League.
o Their weakness was exposed by the Manchurian crisis which encouraged Mussolini to attack Abyssinia which gave Hitler an ally in his desire for conquest.
Briana M. Silva
Ms. Lenaghan
IB History II
September 16, 2011
o Collective Security
o The invasion was a clear challenge to the principle of collective security and the League.
o China was a member and asked for help against Japan.
o The League sent officials to study the problem (this took a year).
o In February 1933, it ordered Japan to leave Manchuria.
o Japan refused and instead left the League.
o The main problems with the League of Nations responding is that it took him a long time to travel.
o Manchuria
o The Nationalist government of China led by Chiang Kai-shek was weak, corrupt and busy fighting the Communists.
o Because of the Great Depression, Japan wanted to build an empire to secure supplies of raw materials.
o The army was its own entity, and did what it wanted, despite the instructions of the government.
o China did rule Manchuria, but the Japanese wanted the railways there.
o The Japanese government was controlled by the army.
o China ruled Manchuria, but the Japanese army ran the railway there, and ruled in Korea.
o September 1931: There was some vandalism on the Manchurian railway; Japan claimed the Chinese had sabotaged the railway.
o They invaded Manchuria and set up ‘independent’ Japanese controlled, State of Manchukuo under the former Emperor of China, Hnery P’ui.
o China appealed to the League.
o Such an impact on WW2.
o Japan was a full member of the League of Nations, and so was China. Collective security was supported by the League.
o China asked the League for help.
o Manchuria
o In December 1931, the League appointed a commission led by Lord Lytton to investigate.
o He did not go to Manchuria until April 1932 and did not report until October.
o In October 1932, Lytton’s report stated that Japan was the aggressor and should leave.
o On Feb. 24, 1933, the Assembly voted that Japan should leave Manchuria.
o League stated that Manchuria self govern while the issues be fixed. Japan must withdraw its troops, and recognize that China has sovereignty over Manchuria. Japan had special rights in the region, and was entitled. China was responsible for the deterioration between Japan and China. China had to bear a certain amount of responsibility, internal stability in China affected Japan.
o The Japanese delegate stated that Manchuria belonged to Japan, Japan refused to compromise over this and withdrew from the League consequently.
o Japan stayed in Manchuria.
o The League could not agree economic sanctions or an arms sales ban.
o In 1933, Japan resigned from the League and invaded/ conquered Jehol (next to Manchuria).
o Members of the league could not agree as what to do. How will you force Japan to leave?
o The Japanese continued to expand. They kept Manchuria. They invaded Jehol in 1933, and China in 1937.
o Japan’s economy improved, which then helped the economy of these other countries.
o The League was discredited/ Manchuria showed
o It was slow (The Lytton report took almost a year to prepare) By the time the finding of the reports were made, it hurt the League, it was too late, Japan was already in charge.
o A country could get its own way if it ignored it. League felt they could not really confront Japan. Major opposition at home.
o ‘Collective security’ was useless against big countries- especially during the Great Depression.
o Even the great powers within the League, Japan was on the Council) were happy to ignore it.
o Herbert Hoover would not support economic sanctions against Japan.
o Hoover sent delegates, no part in sanctions. Communism was also a big factor, fear. Japan kept the balance in power and stopped Communism from spreading in the Far East.
o The Washington Naval Conference, the Kellogg Briand Pact were nothing more than a meaningless gesture. Highlight weakness of the League.
o Countries will go to the aid of other countries, unless it is a big country.
o The League of Nations did nothing to stand up against them.
o Abyssinia
o Because of the Great Depression, Italy wanted to build an empire to secure raw materials. Mussolini was a fascist
Briana M. Silva
Ms. Lenaghan
IB History II
September 14, 2011
o Manchuria 1931-3
o A wide range of issues caused the Japanese invasion of Manchuria.
o Japan had become the largest industrial power in Asia.
o This growth and development was based on the success of her exports to the rest of the world.
o Economy
o Japan has few natural resources and because of her growth population could not feed herself.
o She depended on the export of goods, primarily to the US, to maintain her prosperity.
o The collapse of the US markets created enormous hardship in Japan with massive unemployment and starvation in rural areas.
o Japan seek some solution to the starvation and unrest.
o Government
o The disastrous economy led to a decline in the popularity of the liberal democrat government.
o It led to demands of action by radical nationalist groups often made up of army officers.
o They demanded the government take action to protect the population from the failure of the liberal capitalist economic system.
o During times of depression, people for someone to help them, and therefore, radical groups, such as Hitler, rise, and are made of army officers.
o Objective
o The specific objective was to take over the Chinese province of Manchuria. The radicals will build an empire to secure supplies of raw materials. China was an easy target, government was weak and fighting against Communism.
o Manchuria held a vast wealth of natural resources of all kinds.
o Japan had control of the roadways, a monopoly of railroads.
o Did railroads help to win the Second World War? Transport troops, food, supplies, weapons, ammunition, travel quickly.
o Decision
o The decision to invade was made easy because Japan had made economic investments in the region since the Russo-Japanese War.
o IT had also kept troops in Port Arthur to protect her interests.
o Japan will make its own international law. You cannot just invade another country.
o Expansion
o As a result of the civil war in China, Manchuria had become its own autonomous province under a warlord.
o Japan had been looking to expand into China and had increased her presence there under the Treaty of Versailles.
o It had also increased its territory in concessions forced from a weak Chinese government during WW1.
o Hitler invaded Poland.
o Manchuria ruled itself, and as ruled by a war lord who was constantly fighting with Communist Japan.
o Japan left in 1919, felt it should have had more land.
o Japan, like Germany was looking to gain more land.
o Military Power
o China was in a state of turmoil.
o It made sense to invade Manchuria and posed very little risk.
o Manchuria is very close to Japan and its colony Korea. (Japanese since 1910).