Nok Yan: Anthony P.

Adamthwaite
Adamthwaite believed that the Abyssinia Crisis carried a final death blow to the League. He
believed that the departure of Italy in 1937, as well as the departure of Japan and Germany
in March and October 1933 respectively were already the signs of the League being
collapsed.

Stacey: JR Western
Western believed that the LON was fatally affected by the Abyssinian Crisis and nobody took
it seriously. And they got ready for the second world war. The Abyssinian Crisis lead to
causing dire consequences for the LON.

Script
N- AP Adamthwaite
S- JR Western

N: Good morning,The topic that we are discussing today is To what extent is the Abyssinia Crisis the
main factor that weakened the League of Nations? First, let me introduce myself. I am Anthony P.
Adamthwaite, a historian from Britain. Before we start the discussion, let us go through the background
of the Abyssinia Crisis. The Abyssinia Crisis was one of the major events which led the road of global
war.

It all started with the Wal-Wal Incident, when Mussolini decided to build a fort inside the Abyssinia
border, which broke out into fighting, creating tension between the Abyssinia and Italian forces. Italy
continued sending more and more troops to the Abyssinia border. At last, Italy invaded and conquered
the whole of Abyssinia in 1935.

In order to explore the topic we addressing today, I invited JR Western, an American Historian to
discuss the relationship between the League and the Abyssinia Crisis. So lets start off with Mr
Western, voicing his opinion towards how the Abyssinia Crisis relates to the weakened state of the
League.

S: The League of Nations play an important role in the Abyssinia Crisis. Since its job is to prevent war
happening and promote world peace, the League has the responsibility to settle the border disputes
between Italy and Abyssinia, However, the League have completely failed to do so, since the League
chose not to force countries to obey, this revealed the Leagues lack of power. For example, when Italy
invaded Abyssinia during 1935, limited sanctions were placed on Italy, as the sanctions did not reduce
the amount of oil and fuel that Italy received. As a result, the Italians were still able to import petrol
which is needed for the tanks and machines to form her invasion force. As you can see, the league had
no power to force Italy to withdraw from Abyssinia.

This proved that the League was largely affected the by the Abyssinia Crisis as it was totally powerless.
Therefore, I strongly believe the Abyssinia Crisis was the main factor that affected the League.
N: In my opinion, I believe the Abyssinia Crisis have proved the weaknesses of the League. Yet, there
are many other external factors which have weakened the League. Events such as the Manchurian
Crisis in 1932 to 1933, where Japan invaded and conquered Manchuria, in the process, Japan
departed from the League of Nations. And what had the League done? Nothing! They couldnt send an
army because of the lack of America's support to impose sanctions successfully. In which the sanctions
that were set up were completely pointless, as not only did Japan conquered and stayed in Manchuria,
but invaded China as well.

The weaker nations realised that the League of Nations would not and cannot protect them from the
stronger nations like Japan, Italy and Germany. Soon, everyone realised that the League of Nations
were not prepared and would not take things by force as seen the fact that when stronger nations were
ready to ignore the laws made by the League, the League ignores this and doesnt do anything about it.
Therefore, even though the Abyssinian Crisis was the final death blow to the collapse of the League,
the Manchurian Crisis could directly show the failure of the League, as it could

S: Replying to the opinion you stated, Mr Adamthwaite, you mentioned that the League of Nation had
done nothing to solve the issue, yet that is not the case. Although the League failed to help the Chinese
retain control of Manchuria, it had tried to solve the problem by passing a resolution as well as a
commission. First, the League listened to the complaints of both the Chinese and the Japanese, and
even came up with a resolution. Besides, the League also sent the Lytton Commission in order to
review what happened in Manchuria. Thus, we can see that the League have took action to tackle this
issue but have failed to do so. Therefore, I believe the Manchurian Crisis could not show fully show the
weaknesses of the League.

On the other hand, the failures of the League were shown throughout the the Abyssinia Crisis. For
instance, when Hailee Selassie, the Emperor of Ethiopia asked the League of Nations for help, the
League did not apply any penalties to both the Italian and Ethiopian forces as the League believed that
neither side was blamed for the Wal-Wal Incident. Thus, the Abyssinia Crisis could fully show that the
failure of the League as it did not take any action to arbitrate the issue and have failed to prevent war
through collective security. Hence, we can see that the League was largely weakened by the crisis as
it was useless in responding to the problem.

Conclusion: PERSONAL Opinion

N: After doing research through various of different sources between the two historians, Anthony P.
Adamthwaites belief of the League of Nations destruction was heavily affected by the major events
that took place before the Abyssinian Crisis started, thus becoming the last straw, is in a certain way
more reliable than JR Westerns belief.

Although I wouldnt say that I entirely disagree with what JR Western believed in, I think its more to do
with the fact that there were some major problems that arose during the Manchurian Crisis, which led
to the result of the Abyssinian Crisis. The League of Nations was too soft-hearted and didnt really
participated in negotiating with the weaker nations and barely took any action by force. E.g When the
League of Nations secretly allowed Italy to take a part of Abyssinia.
S: After analysing the perspectives of both historian, I believe that the Abyssinia Crisis was the main
factor that weakened the League of Nations. The crisis proved that the League was powerless as it
was not able to force countries to obey its rules. Moreover, it have directly proved the failure of the
League since it did not any action in settling the disputes between Italy and Ethiopia. Therefore, the
League was strongly weakened by the Abyssinia Crisis.

Yet, , I believe that there are other minor factors which have strongly affected the League of Nations,
such as the Manchurian Crisis. When Japan decided to leave the League, the League responded by
doing nothing. This proved that the League was irresponsible as it did not take action at all.

In conclusion, I believe both the Manchurian Crisis and Abyssinia Crisis have weakened the League of
Nations. However, the Abyssinian crisis was the event which sealed the fate of the League of Nations
and caused it to fail.