Page "League of Nations" Paragraph 79

The World Disarmament Conference was convened by the League of Nations in Geneva in 1932, with representatives from 60 states.

A one-year moratorium on the expansion of armaments, later extended by a few months, was proposed at the start of the conference.

The Disarmament Commission obtained initial agreement from France, Italy, Japan, and Britain to limit the size of their navies.

The Kellogg – Briand Pact, facilitated by the commission in 1928, failed in its objective of outlawing war.

Ultimately, the Commission failed to halt the military build-up by Germany, Italy and Japan during the 1930s.

The League was mostly silent in the face of major events leading to the Second World War, such as Hitler's re-militarization of the Rhineland, occupation of the Sudetenland and Anschluss of Austria, which had been forbidden by the Treaty of Versailles.

In fact, League members themselves re-armed.

In 1933, Japan simply withdrew from the League rather than submit to its judgement, as did Germany the same year ( using the failure of the World Disarmament Conference to agree to arms parity between France and Germany as a pretext ), and Italy in 1937.

The final significant act of the League was to expel the Soviet Union in December 1939 after it invaded Finland.