the collapse of collective security and the events that led to WWII, including Manchuria (1931), Abyssinia (1935), the Rhineland (1936), the Spanish Civil War (1936 to 1939), Anschluss (1938), Munich (1938), and the invasion of Poland (1939)

What this dot point is asking

VCAA expects you to explain why the League of Nations and the Western powers failed to stop the chain of aggression from Manchuria (1931) to Poland (1939) that produced WWII. Strong responses pair the named crises and dates with the structural reasons (League weakness, US absence, French and British war-weariness, the Depression) and cite at least one named historian (Taylor or Overy).

The answer

What collective security was meant to be

Collective security under the League of Nations Covenant (in force 10 January 1920) committed member states to treat an attack on any one as a threat to all and to respond with economic sanctions or, if necessary, military force. The Treaty of Locarno (16 October 1925) extended the principle by guaranteeing the German-French and German-Belgian borders.

Three structural weaknesses doomed the system. The United States, the largest economy in the world, never joined the League. The USSR was excluded until 1934. Decisions in the Council required unanimity. There was no standing League force; enforcement depended on member states' will to act.

The Manchurian crisis (1931 to 1933)

The Japanese Kwantung Army staged the Mukden Incident on 18 September 1931, blaming Chinese forces for a bombing of the South Manchuria Railway and seizing Manchurian cities in response. By February 1932, Japan had established the puppet state of Manchukuo under the last Qing emperor Puyi.

The League appointed the Lytton Commission, which reported in October 1932 that Japan was the aggressor. The Assembly endorsed the report on 24 February 1933. Japan responded by withdrawing from the League on 27 March 1933. No sanctions were imposed. The League's first major test ended with the aggressor unpunished.

The Abyssinian crisis (1935 to 1936)

Italy invaded Abyssinia (Ethiopia) on 3 October 1935. Mussolini sought colonial prestige and revenge for the Italian defeat at Adwa in 1896. The League declared Italy the aggressor on 7 October 1935 and imposed limited sanctions on 18 November 1935: arms embargoes, financial restrictions, and bans on certain exports. Oil and coal, the goods Italy most needed, were excluded.

The Hoare-Laval Pact (8 December 1935), a secret deal between the British Foreign Secretary Samuel Hoare and the French Premier Pierre Laval, would have given Mussolini two-thirds of Abyssinia. The plan leaked. Public outrage forced Hoare to resign on 18 December 1935 and Laval on 22 January 1936, but Italy completed the conquest of Addis Ababa on 5 May 1936. The League lifted sanctions on 4 July 1936. Italy left the League on 11 December 1937.

The crisis killed the League as a security organisation. Britain and France were exposed as unwilling to confront a determined aggressor; Hitler watched and drew conclusions.

The remilitarisation of the Rhineland (March 1936)

The Treaty of Versailles (1919) and the Treaty of Locarno (1925) had demilitarised the Rhineland. On 7 March 1936, German troops crossed the bridges into the demilitarised zone. The force was small (around 22,000 troops with limited equipment) and would have retreated if challenged.

France did not act. Prime Minister Sarraut warned against unilateral action; Britain refused to back a French response. Hitler later recalled, "The 48 hours after the march into the Rhineland were the most nerve-racking in my life. If the French had then marched into the Rhineland, we would have had to withdraw with our tails between our legs."

The remilitarisation closed France's strategic window for action. Once Germany was free to fortify its western border (the Westwall, from 1936 onwards), the French alliance system in Eastern Europe was strategically isolated.

The Spanish Civil War (1936 to 1939)

The Nationalist generals' rising against the Spanish Republican government began on 17 July 1936. The Non-Intervention Committee (August 1936), endorsed by Britain, France, Germany, Italy and the USSR, was meant to seal off the war from the great powers.

In practice, Germany and Italy intervened openly on Franco's side. The German Condor Legion provided airpower; the Italian Corpo Truppe Volontarie sent around 80,000 troops. The Condor Legion's bombing of Guernica on 26 April 1937 became a symbol of the new aerial war on civilians.

The Soviet Union sent advisers, tanks and aircraft to the Republic; foreign volunteers in the International Brigades fought alongside Republican forces. Britain and France held to non-intervention, leaving the Republic outgunned. Franco entered Madrid on 28 March 1939; the war ended on 1 April 1939.

The war showed that ideological alignment now mattered more than collective security. Britain and France's neutrality in a war waged by a fascist coalition against a republic discredited Western anti-fascism.

Anschluss (March 1938)

The 1934 Austrian Nazi attempt to seize Vienna (with the murder of Chancellor Dollfuss on 25 July 1934) had failed when Mussolini moved Italian troops to the Brenner Pass. By 1938, Mussolini was aligned with Berlin (the Rome-Berlin Axis, October 1936; the Anti-Comintern Pact, November 1937) and the Italian veto was gone.

Hitler summoned Austrian Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg to Berchtesgaden on 12 February 1938 and demanded the legalisation of the Austrian Nazi Party and the appointment of Arthur Seyss-Inquart as Interior Minister. When Schuschnigg called a referendum on Austrian independence for 13 March 1938, Hitler threatened invasion. German troops crossed the border on 12 March 1938. A plebiscite on 10 April 1938 produced 99.7 per cent endorsement. No power intervened.

Anschluss was forbidden under Versailles and the Treaty of Saint-Germain. The silence of Britain, France and the League confirmed that Versailles no longer constrained Germany.

Munich (September 1938)

Hitler turned to Czechoslovakia, demanding self-determination for the three million ethnic Germans in the Sudetenland. The crisis built through summer 1938 with Sudeten Nazi protests and German troop movements.

Chamberlain flew to Berchtesgaden (15 September), Bad Godesberg (22 September), and finally Munich (29-30 September 1938). The Munich Agreement was signed on 30 September 1938 by Chamberlain (Britain), Daladier (France), Mussolini (Italy) and Hitler (Germany). Czechoslovakia was not represented; the USSR was excluded.

Germany acquired the Sudetenland with its three million ethnic Germans, the Czech border fortifications, and around 70 per cent of Czech heavy industry. Chamberlain returned to Heston aerodrome on 30 September with a separate paper signed by Hitler and announced, "I believe it is peace for our time."

Czechoslovakia was indefensible after Munich. On 15 March 1939, German troops occupied the rump of Bohemia and Moravia. Slovakia became a German client state. Chamberlain's policy of appeasement collapsed in front of him.

Britain's reversal and the Polish Guarantee

The British government issued the Polish Guarantee on 31 March 1939, pledging to defend Polish independence. The guarantee was strategic: Poland was the next likely target and the line had to be drawn somewhere. Italy invaded Albania on 7 April 1939 and Britain extended guarantees to Greece and Romania.

Anglo-French talks with the USSR through summer 1939 produced no military alliance. Britain and France distrusted Stalin; Stalin doubted their willingness to fight; Poland refused to allow Soviet troops on its soil.

The Nazi-Soviet Pact (23 August 1939)

The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, signed in Moscow on 23 August 1939, was a non-aggression treaty between Nazi Germany and the USSR. A secret protocol divided Eastern Europe into spheres of influence: Germany would take western Poland; the USSR would take eastern Poland, the Baltic states, and Bessarabia.

The Pact removed the eastern obstacle to a German attack on Poland. Stalin bought time to rebuild a Red Army gutted by the Purges (1937-1938).

The invasion of Poland (1 September 1939)

Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939 without a declaration of war, using the staged Gleiwitz Incident (a fake Polish attack on a German radio station, 31 August 1939) as pretext. Britain and France declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939. The USSR invaded eastern Poland on 17 September 1939. Polish resistance ended by 6 October 1939.

WWII had begun in Europe. Collective security as a system had failed completely.

Historiography

A.J.P. Taylor (The Origins of the Second World War, 1961) argues Hitler was an opportunist who exploited Allied weakness rather than a master planner working to a 1939 timetable. The book was controversial because it shifted blame from Hitler towards Allied passivity.

Richard Overy (The Road to War, 1989, and The Origins of the Second World War, 1987) rejects Taylor's opportunism thesis and emphasises Nazi ideological intent, particularly Lebensraum doctrine and antisemitism.

Donald Cameron Watt (How War Came, 1989) examines the diplomacy of the final year (March 1939 to September 1939) and emphasises the failures of Anglo-French diplomacy with the USSR.

Zara Steiner (The Triumph of the Dark, 2011) is the standard account of the diplomacy of the 1930s, emphasising the interaction of structural weakness (Depression, weak League) with personality (Hitler, Mussolini, Chamberlain).

Common exam traps

Calling Chamberlain naive. Chamberlain knew the British military was unready (the Inskip Report 1937 had warned of weakness) and that public opinion was set against another European war. Appeasement was a calculated policy, not an illusion.

Forgetting the United States. The Neutrality Acts (1935, 1936, 1937) restricted American intervention. Roosevelt's October 1937 "Quarantine Speech" was retracted under political pressure. American absence from collective security was a permanent fixture of the 1930s.

Calling Munich "the start" of WWII. Munich was a milestone, but WWII began on 1 September 1939 (Britain and France declared war on 3 September). Pin the date carefully.

Confusing the Anti-Comintern Pact (1936-1937) with the Axis (1936) and the Pact of Steel (1939). The Anti-Comintern Pact (Germany and Japan, 25 November 1936; Italy joined 6 November 1937) was an ideological alignment. The Rome-Berlin Axis (October 1936) was the Italian-German diplomatic alignment. The Pact of Steel (22 May 1939) was the formal military alliance between Italy and Germany.

In one sentence

Between 1931 and 1939, collective security under the League of Nations collapsed under the weight of seven crises (Manchuria, Abyssinia, the Rhineland, Spain, Anschluss, Munich, Poland) in which the United States stayed out, the League had no enforcement teeth, Britain and France preferred appeasement to confrontation, and Hitler exploited each retreat until the Nazi-Soviet Pact (23 August 1939) cleared the path for the invasion of Poland and the start of WWII on 1 September 1939.