LoN Failure - Corfu & Washington
History: OCR A GCSE Cold War & International Relations, topic 1.1.7
Invasion of Corfu, 1923
Mussolini invaded Corfu and killed 15 people in 1923 after the murder of Tellini; an Italian man sent by the League of Nations.
Tellini
- An Italian man, Tellini, was murdered in Greece after surveying the land at the request of the League of Nations.
- Mussolini (the leader of Italy) was outraged at this and blamed the Greek government and demanded that anyone associated with the murder of Tellini be round up and shot!
Compensation
- He also demanded that he have compensation paid to him by the Greeks.
- When the Greeks didn’t do this, Mussolini invaded Corfu and killed 15 people.
Invasion of Corfu
- The Greeks complained to the League of Nations and asked them to get Mussolini out and to catch the killers of their people.
- But, the League of Nations agreed that Mussolini (or Italy) should be paid compensation over the murder of Tellini.
Overriding the League of Nations
- However, Mussolini went further and got Britain, France, and Japan to agree to make Greece pay compensation and also formally apologise to Italy.
- This showed Mussolini and other leaders that if they pushed hard enough they could get what they wanted, regardless of what the League of Nations said.
Washington Arms Conference
The Washington Arms Conference (1921–22) was held to discuss how big countries' navies should be. However, the League of Nations was not invited to participate in the conference.
The conference
- Major countries such as the USA, Britain, Japan and France attended the Washington Arms Conference.
- They discussed how big navies should be, without any input from the League of Nations.
Navy sizes
- The decision was that Britain and America could have the same size navy.
- Then, for every 5 tonnes of each of their battleships weighed, Japan could have 3 tonnes.
Weakness of the League of Nations
- This treaty didn’t even include the League, which undermined the League of Nation's rights to make rulings around military or naval matters.
- It also showed that the USA could be involved in international affairs but only the affairs that they wanted to. The USA was not a member of the League of Nations.
Test yourself on LoN Failure - Corfu & Washington
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