Manchuria and Abyssinia

What the specification asks for

“Failures in Manchuria (1931–33), Abyssinia (1935–36).” — examined through consequence and significance. Incandio is aligned to specification 4HI1; it is not published by, endorsed by or affiliated with Pearson.

1 · Understand it

Manchuria, 1931–33

Japanese officers staged an incident on the South Manchurian Railway in September 1931 and used it as the pretext for occupying Manchuria. China appealed to the League, which appointed a commission of inquiry under Lord Lytton.

The report, published in 1932, was measured. It acknowledged Japanese grievances and interests in Manchuria, found that the military operation had not been an act of self-defence, and recommended an autonomous Manchuria under Chinese sovereignty with Japanese interests protected. The League adopted it in February 1933 and Japan gave notice of withdrawal.

Nothing else happened. No sanctions were imposed, no member state acted, and the puppet state of Manchukuo continued. The reasons are worth stating: Manchuria was extremely distant from Europe, Britain and France had no forces available in Asia, the Depression made economic measures unattractive, and neither wanted a war in the Pacific.

Abyssinia, 1935–36

Italy invaded Abyssinia in October 1935 after a border incident. Haile Selassie appealed to the League, which for the first time named a great power as an aggressor and imposed economic sanctions.

The sanctions were real and incomplete in a specific and revealing way. They banned arms sales, loans and certain imports and exports, and they excluded oil, coal, steel and iron. The Suez Canal, through which Italian supplies and troops moved to East Africa, remained open. The exclusions were not oversights: oil sanctions were feared to risk war with Italy, and closing the Canal would have been an act Britain judged too provocative.

In December 1935 the British and French foreign ministers, Samuel Hoare and Pierre Laval, secretly agreed a plan giving Italy the greater part of Abyssinia. It was leaked to the French press, and the resulting public outrage forced both men out of office. Italy completed the conquest in May 1936 and sanctions were abandoned in July.

Which failure mattered and why

The two cases failed for different reasons and the difference is the substance of any judgement about them. Manchuria failed because nothing was attempted: it was too far away and no member was willing to bear the cost. Abyssinia failed because something was attempted and was betrayed by the states attempting it.

That is why Abyssinia is the decisive failure. Sanctions that exclude oil are a signal that the sanctioning states do not intend them to be decisive; a canal left open to an aggressor's troopships is the same signal in geography; and a secret pact to give the victim away, negotiated by the foreign ministers of the two leading members while their own sanctions were running, is not a failure of machinery but a repudiation of the enterprise by the people running it.

After 1936 no state believed the League would act, and the consequences ran directly into the rest of the decade: the remilitarisation of the Rhineland in March 1936 during the crisis, the Spanish Civil War, and the Anschluss. It is precise to say that the League was not destroyed by aggression but by its own leading members, and the Hoare-Laval Pact is the evidence.

Haile Selassie's appearance before the Assembly at Geneva in June 1936 is worth knowing as the period's most quoted moment. An emperor whose country had been conquered addressed the organisation that had promised to protect it, in a hall where Italian journalists had to be removed for barracking him, and warned that what had been done to his people would be done to others. Within three years the states listening were at war. Whether that is evidence of the League's importance or of its irrelevance is itself arguable, and a candidate can use the scene either way provided they say which.

2 · Learn it — the notes

The dates that earn marks

September 1931

Japanese officers stage the Mukden Incident and occupy Manchuria. Why this date: It is the first test of the League against a great power, and the response is an inquiry.

February 1933

The League adopts the Lytton Report; Japan gives notice of withdrawal, and no sanctions follow. Why this date: A finding without enforcement establishes what condemnation is worth on its own.

October 1935

Italy invades Abyssinia; the League names a great power as aggressor and imposes sanctions excluding oil. Why this date: The exclusions show that the sanctioning states did not intend the measures to be decisive.

December 1935

The Hoare-Laval Pact is leaked and both ministers resign. Why this date: The League's two leading members were caught negotiating to give the victim away while their own sanctions ran.

The figures, and how far to trust them

• Oil, coal, steel and iron excluded — The commodities left out of the 1935 sanctions against Italy. (Oil sanctions were discussed repeatedly and never imposed; estimates of their likely effect differ.)
• The Suez Canal stayed open — Italian troops and supplies reached East Africa through it throughout the war.
• May 1936 and July 1936 — The completion of the Italian conquest and the abandonment of sanctions.

The people to place

• Lord Lytton — Chaired the League commission on Manchuria; its 1932 report found the operation was not self-defence.
• Haile Selassie — Emperor of Abyssinia; appealed to the League Assembly in person in 1936.
• Samuel Hoare — British Foreign Secretary; resigned after the leak of the pact bearing his name.
• Pierre Laval — French premier; co-author of the same pact and also forced from office.

How historians disagree

Attributed interpretations, never voiced — the AO4 seam.

• The 'destroyed by its own members' reading: Abyssinia killed the League not because sanctions failed but because Britain and France were caught negotiating to hand the victim over while sanctions were running, which destroyed any belief that the organisation meant what it said. Contested by The reading that the League was already finished after Manchuria, since a condemnation with no enforcement had established what its findings were worth three years earlier..

What students say — and what is actually the case

Not this: The League did nothing about Abyssinia.

This: It named Italy as an aggressor and imposed economic sanctions for the first time. The sanctions excluded oil, coal, steel and iron, and the Suez Canal remained open.

Not this: The Hoare-Laval Pact was League policy.

This: It was a secret bilateral agreement between the British and French foreign ministers, and when it leaked both were forced to resign — which shows that public opinion in both countries opposed it.

Two things students merge

Blurred: Manchuria and Abyssinia as failures.

The distinction: Manchuria failed because nothing was attempted; Abyssinia failed because something was attempted and then betrayed. The second is far more damaging, because it destroyed belief rather than merely revealing weakness.

Blurred: Sanctions failing and sanctions designed not to bite.

The distinction: Excluding oil, coal and steel and leaving the Canal open was a series of choices. Whether sanctions can work is a different question from whether these ones were intended to.

What a Grade 9 answer holds here

A Grade 9 answer distinguishes the two failures by what was attempted. Nothing was tried over Manchuria, so it revealed weakness; sanctions were imposed over Abyssinia and their authors were then caught planning to hand the victim over — and an organisation whose leading members betray its own measures while they are running has lost something worse than a case.

3 · How it is examined

This strand is genuinely set through: Paper 2 Section B (a) (6 marks — “Explain TWO ways in which … was different from ….”); Paper 2 Section B (b) (8 marks — “Explain TWO causes of ….”); Paper 2 Section B (c)(i) or (c)(ii) (16 marks — “How significant was … in …, in the years …? / How far were … responsible for …, in the years …? You may use the following in your answer: • [prompt] • [prompt]. You must also use information of your own.”).

What earns marks: The oil exclusion and the open Canal, given together. Two specifics, and they establish intention rather than incapacity.

The cap that bites here: The 16-mark question requires three aspects; two will not reach the top band.

4 · Prove it — the questions

Answered inside Incandio, where a marker checks what a correct answer must contain and tells you which half was missing. The marking stays in the app; the questions are here.

1. Explain TWO ways in which the Abyssinian crisis was different from the Manchurian crisis. [6 marks · Paper 2 Section B (a)]
2. Explain TWO causes of the League's failure over Manchuria. [8 marks · Paper 2 Section B (b)]
3. Explain TWO causes of the failure of sanctions against Italy in 1935–36. [8 marks · Paper 2 Section B (b)]
4. How significant was the Abyssinian crisis in the failure of the League, in the years 1919–46? [16 marks · Paper 2 Section B (c)(i) or (c)(ii)]
5. How far were Britain and France responsible for the failure of the League? [16 marks · Paper 2 Section B (c)(i) or (c)(ii)]

Decide it

This lesson feeds a Decide History judgement — a position you commit to, an objection you answer, a criterion you name: Did the League fail because of its structure or because of its members?.

Carry on through the option

• Previous lesson: The great powers, the veto and the failure to curb the dictators
• Next lesson: The specialised agencies continue
• Key topic 2 · The League challenged, 1930–39 · The changing role of international organisations: the league and the UN, 1919–c2011 · the option's timeline · Incandio History
• The other key topics of The changing role of international organisations: The creation and successes of the League, 1919–29 · Setting up the United Nations Organisation and its work to 1964 · The UN challenged, 1967–89 · The UN at bay, 1990–2011