Disarmament Conference 1932-1934 Took place in February 1932. Germany proposed all countries to disarm to their level.

When the Conference didnt agree on the principle of equality, the Germans walked out of the Conference. In December 1932, the countries decided to treat Germany equally. February 1933, Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. He started to rearm Germany secretly. In May 1933, Hitler promised not to rearm Germany if in 5 years time all other nations destroyed their arms. In June 1933, Britain produced an ambitious disarmament plan. In October 1933 Hitler withdrew from the Disarmament Conference and soon took Germany out of the League. After that the other countries started rearming. Disarmament Conference proved futile and it ended in 1934. In 1935 the British signed a naval agreement with Germany, which allowed Germany to build its navy to 35% of the size of the British navy. This agreement was made without consulting the League of Nations.

Page 249 source 12 exercise 1 and 2. 1. a) According to source 12, ordinary people are sheep. Sheep often means who follow their leaders without thinking. b) according to source 12, the crocodile and other carnivore animals represent the League of Nations. The crocodile is crying with false tears pretending that he is sorry for ending the conference. He is putting the blame on the sheep for the failure of the conference to cover their own failures and inabilities as a result of which the disarmament conference never achieved its goals and countries started rearming at the end of it. 2. a) Germany (Hitler) left the League and started to rearm b) Britain produced a disarmament plan in response to Hitlers threats but it never came through.

As a result, German left the conference and then the League. c) even though the League held the conference, in reality none of the participants was willing to disarm. They demanded it only from Germany which made Hitler not trust the League and withdrawing from it.

Page 254 ex. 2 There is no doubt League failed greatly in 1930s. And it happened because of the Great Depression. Great Depression happened in 1929 and almost every country on earth got damaged from it. Japans economy was on the verge of collapse. So they decided to invade Manchuria due to its mineral wealth in 1931 and it improved their own economy twice. The League did nothing to stop Japan and didnt even impose the economic sanctions fearing that ban on trade with Japan would worsen the economy of Britain and France. Britain suffered high unemployment and was not willing to get involved in solving international disputes when their economy was suffering. As a result, it was not interested in imposing economic sanctions on Japan and Italy because it meant higher unemployment in Britain for example if oil sales were banned to Italy invading Abyssinia. Germany suffered the most because there was no more money lent to it from the USA to pay off reparations. As a result, German people elected the Nazis who promised them to solve social and economic problems. Adolf Hitler made no secret that he wished to overturn the Treaty of Versailles and invade other countries to regain lost German territory. Seeing this, France started building frontier defences on their border with Germany. In Italy Mussolini promised the poor and hungry Italians to be powerful and invade other countries. Soon afterwards in 1935 Italy invaded Abyssinia. The USA was no longer interested in supporting economic sanctions on the aggressors when their economy was in such a bad state. T The Great Depression weakened the aim of the League which was to protect peace in the world. Countries which were members of the League failed to keep the aim and became aggressive to rescue their economies (Japan, Italy, Germany). The other members could not and were not willing to stop them also due to economic problems they faced (Britain& France). As a result, in 1930s the League stopped performing its main function of the peace watchdog.