To what extent was the League of Nations a success?

Cambridge IGCSE History 0470 · Paper 1 Section A, Core Content Option B Syllabus: 2027 and 2028 Option B: The twentieth century: international relations since 1919 Key Question 2 of six

This file covers the League of Nations: what it was built to do, how it was put together, what it achieved in the 1920s, what it did for refugees and workers and slaves, and how it collapsed as an instrument of peace in the 1930s. If you are looking for the Treaty of Versailles itself, including the decision to write the League into it, that is Key Question 1 and it is in the B1. Was the Treaty of Versailles fair? notes. If you are looking for what Hitler did with the opening the League's failure left him, that is Key Question 3 and it is in the B3. How far was Hitler's foreign policy to blame for the outbreak of war in Europe in 1939? notes.

The command in the Key Question is "to what extent", and it is not decoration. Cambridge asks this question because the honest answer is "in some ways a great deal, in others not at all", and the mark scheme rewards a candidate who can hold both halves at once. A student who has only learned that the League failed cannot reach the top band on a question about the 1920s or about the agencies. A student who has only learned the successes cannot reach it on Manchuria or Abyssinia. Everything below is arranged so that you leave with both sides of every argument.

1. What the syllabus actually asks

This is the wording printed in the Cambridge IGCSE History 0470 syllabus for 2027 and 2028. Learn the Key Question itself, because examiners build 10 mark questions directly out of it.

Key Question 2

To what extent was the League of Nations a success?

Focus points

• How far did weaknesses in the League's organisation and membership make failure inevitable?
• How successful were the League's attempts at peacekeeping in the 1920s?
• How important was the League's humanitarian work?
• How far did the Depression make the work of the League more difficult in the 1930s?

Specified content

• The structure, aims and membership of the League
• Successes and failures in peacekeeping during the 1920s:
• Vilna 1920
• Aaland Islands 1920-21
• Corfu 1923
• Bulgaria 1925
• The League's humanitarian work:
• refugees
• health
• working conditions
• slavery
• The League in the 1930s:
• causes, events and consequences of the Manchurian crisis and of the Abyssinian crisis

The focus points are four essay titles, not four topics

Cambridge defines the three layers itself: key questions define the over-arching issues, focus points identify the issues that enable candidates to gain an understanding of the key question, and specified content provides guidance on what needs to be studied.

Read your four focus points again as questions you must be able to answer both ways, because that is what they are.

Every one of those four has been set as a real 10 mark question in the past seven years, most of them several times. Section 10 lists the actual wordings.

A note on the syllabus wording

The syllabus prints the option title two ways. The contents page and the subject content introduction both call it The twentieth century: international relations since 1919, while the header on the Option B content page reads from 1919. They mean the same thing. Use "since 1919".

One smaller point of vocabulary. The syllabus lists the fourth 1920s dispute as "Bulgaria 1925". The mark schemes call the same event the Greek-Bulgarian crisis of 1925 and, in one case, the Greek invasion of Bulgaria. If you have revised one name and meet the other in the exam, it is the same crisis.

2. Where this Key Question appears on the paper

The ladders themselves are the same for every question on Paper 1, and they are set out in the How Cambridge marks History 0470 Paper 1 notes: the three parts and their marks, the assessment objective split, and the two rules Cambridge changed for the 2024 series. Read that page once. Nothing below repeats it.

What is specific to this Key Question is where it turns up, and it turns up in two places, which is the single most useful piece of exam intelligence on this page.

It is Question 5 or Question 6, and more often Question 6

The syllabus guarantees that two of the four Option B questions come from Key Questions 1 to 3. In practice those two are always Question 5 and Question 6. Reading all 48 Paper 1 mark schemes from 2018 to 2024 gives an exact picture, and it is a clean one. The two questions are drawn from three Key Questions, and the pairing falls out like this:

Three consequences, and they all matter for how you revise.

The League appears on 30 of the 48 papers read, which is 62.5 per cent. Versailles appears on 36 and Hitler on 30. So this Key Question is set almost exactly as often as Hitler's foreign policy and only a little less often than Versailles. It is not a minor topic you can safely skip.

Question 5 does alternate, exactly as the B1. Was the Treaty of Versailles fair? notes report: 36 papers set Question 5 on Versailles and 12 set it on the League. But reading only Question 5 badly understates this Key Question, because the League is at Question 6 more often than at Question 5, by 18 to 12.

The League and Hitler have never both been absent, and the League and Versailles have never both been absent. In every one of the 48 papers, exactly two of the three Key Questions were set, and no paper ever set two questions on the same Key Question. So if you revise this Key Question and one neighbour, you are guaranteed at least one question you have prepared, and usually two.

It is a Paper 2 topic as well

Paper 2 sets one twentieth century topic per paper and hangs six or seven sources off it. Across the papers read, the League has been that topic for two whole series and part of a third:

• June 2018, all three variants: "Did the League of Nations lack support from the beginning?", "Why did the League fail over Manchuria?", "Was the League of Nations seen in a positive way from the start?"
• March 2019: "Were Italian actions in Abyssinia justified?"
• November 2021, all three variants: "How important was the USA's decision not to join the League of Nations?", "Who was mainly to blame for the League's failure over Abyssinia?", "Was the League justified in doing little about the Japanese invasion of Manchuria?"

Paper 2 asks a completely different thing of you, because its assessment objective split is 80 per cent sources and 0 per cent explanation. But the content is this content, so the revision is not wasted. Section 11 says what Paper 2 does with it.

Your knowledge earns marks on the neighbouring questions too

Cambridge does not keep the League sealed inside its own question. Two real examples from the schemes:

• In June 2018 the whole of Question 5 was about the peace settlement, and part (b) asked "Why did Wilson want a 'league of nations'?" That is League material inside a Versailles question.
• In June 2021 the whole of Question 6 was about Hitler, and part (b) asked "Why were the failures of the League of Nations in the 1930s important to Hitler?" That is League material inside a Hitler question.

So the boundary in section 9 tells you where your revision stops being examined as this Key Question. It does not tell you where the facts stop being useful.

3. What the League was for, and what it was given to work with

Everything in focus point 1 depends on knowing the machinery, so learn this first and learn it precisely. Examiner reports repeatedly describe candidates writing "a generic description of the League" when a question asked something specific, which is what happens when the machinery is a blur.

The aims

Cambridge's schemes credit these as the League's purposes:

• to stop war and settle international disputes peacefully
• to discourage aggression by any nation
• to encourage disarmament
• to improve people's living and working conditions across the world

The idea holding the first two together has a name, and Cambridge sets 4 mark questions on the name alone.

Collective security

Cambridge's own mark scheme for "What was meant by 'collective security'?" credits all of the following:

• it was a key idea of the League, set out in Article 10 of the Covenant
• it encouraged members to keep the peace and to resist aggression
• League members protected each other: an attack on one was treated as an attack on all
• if one country's security was threatened there would be a collective response
• an aggressive country would be condemned by other countries, which is moral disapproval
• economic sanctions might be used against aggressive countries
• military sanctions might be used against aggressors

The examiner report for that series is blunt about what went wrong: "Weaker responses lacked a proper understanding of the concept of collective security", and there was "a tendency for some responses to be vague, especially where candidates did not refer to the range of sanctions available".

The methods, in ascending order of force

Cambridge sets this as a 4 mark question in its own right. The League could:

1. use verbal moral disapproval, condemning a country publicly
2. vote against the actions of a country
3. bring the two sides together for talks
4. impose economic sanctions
5. ask its members to contribute to an army and use force

Notice what is happening at step five. The League had no army of its own. It could only ask members to lend one. This is the single fact that does the most work in this Key Question, and section 4 explains why it is not quite the whole story.

The Assembly

• contained representatives of all members
• met in Geneva
• met once a year
• was the League's parliament
• set the budget, admitted new members, and elected the temporary members of the Council
• could make recommendations to the Council
• its decisions had to be unanimous

The Council

• consisted of permanent members and temporary members elected by the Assembly for three years
• met three to five times a year, and during emergencies
• its job was to settle international disputes
• Council members had a veto
• it could issue sanctions

The Permanent Court of Justice

• advised League members on legal issues, and League institutions such as the Council
• made judgments on issues between members
• interpreted international treaties
• intervened in matters of international law
• advised on the change from the Treaty of Sèvres to the Treaty of Lausanne
• made the judgment on the Aaland Islands and advised on German and Polish interests in Upper Silesia
• could not enforce its decisions

That last line is the Court in one sentence, and it is the League in one sentence too.

The agencies

Four of them carry the humanitarian work, and Cambridge sets whole questions on each. Section 6 covers what they did.

• the Refugee Organisation, or High Commission for Refugees
• the Health Organisation, or health commission, which later became the WHO
• the International Labour Organisation, the ILO
• the Slavery Commission

Membership, which is a moving target

This is where most candidates lose accuracy, because membership changed continuously and Cambridge asks about specific years.

Two further points Cambridge credits: all defeated countries were excluded at the start, and some countries did not join because the USA had not. The verdict Cambridge quotes as a Level 2 point is worth memorising as a phrase: many people considered the League "a club for the victorious powers".

Why the United States stayed out

Cambridge's Level 3 exemplar for "Why did the League not include all countries in its membership?" gives the American story in full, so this is safe ground:

1. Wilson's Democrats had run the USA for eight troubled years
2. Republicans saw the League as an ideal chance to defeat him
3. Congress voted in 1919 and Wilson was defeated
4. ill health kept Wilson out of the 1920 election
5. his Democrat successor lost by a landslide to Warren Harding, who favoured isolationism and a return to "normalcy"

Use this with care. Section 12 records that examiner reports flag the American story as the single most over-written piece of material in this whole Key Question. It is the right answer to a membership question and the wrong answer to almost everything else.

4. Focus point: did weaknesses in organisation and membership make failure inevitable?

Note the word inevitable. Cambridge is not asking you to list weaknesses. It is asking whether the weaknesses were fatal in themselves, or whether they only became fatal because of what member states chose to do. That is the argument, and both sides of it are examinable.

The case that failure was built in

No army. The League could ask members for troops but could not compel them. Cambridge's own Level 3 exemplar puts the mechanism plainly: when Italy invaded Abyssinia the League voted for economic sanctions, but with no army behind the threat it could do nothing when Mussolini ignored them.

Unanimity in the Assembly. Every decision had to be agreed by every member. Cambridge's phrase for the consequence is that one small state could hold up a vital decision.

A veto in the Council. Each permanent member could stop League action even if every other member agreed. Since Japan and Italy were both permanent members of the Council when they committed their aggressions, this is not a theoretical problem.

Speed. The Assembly met once a year. The Council met three to five times a year. Neither timetable is capable of responding to an invasion, and the Manchurian crisis proved it.

Membership gaps. The USA never joined; the defeated powers were excluded; the USSR was outside for the League's first fifteen years. Cambridge's exemplar on the American absence gives the sharpest single mechanism in this focus point:

1. the League discussed economic sanctions on Japan over Manchuria
2. Japan's main trading partner was the USA, which was not in the League
3. sanctions would have left Japanese trade untouched while cutting European trade in the Far East
4. so European members declined to impose them and Japan got away with it

The same argument runs on Abyssinia: the USA was unlikely to support a ban on coal and oil exports to Italy, so the ban was never worth imposing.

The case that the design was not the problem

This is the side most candidates cannot supply, and it is the side that gets you from 6 to 10.

The same design worked repeatedly in the 1920s. Aaland, Upper Silesia, Mosul, the Greek-Bulgarian crisis, Colombia and Peru, Bolivia and Paraguay. The machinery that supposedly guaranteed failure kept producing settlements for a decade. Section 5 has the detail.

The failures were decisions, not defects. Cambridge's own exemplar for "It was the behaviour of member states, not the structure of the League, that led to its failure" argues it directly: Britain and France were the key members, and their reluctance to act against Japan over Manchuria and Italy over Abyssinia is what made the League powerless. They did not want to act against Italy because they hoped for Italy as an ally against Hitler's Germany. And Japan and Italy were themselves members when they committed their aggressions, so the League was being undermined from inside.

An army would not have been used. Cambridge prints this as a Level 3 argument in its own right, and it is the most sophisticated point available on this focus point. Manchuria was on the other side of the world; getting a force there would have been enormously difficult; and a League that could not agree to impose oil sanctions would not have agreed to send soldiers either. On this reading the missing army is a symptom of the missing will, not a separate cause.

The Hoare-Laval Pact is the proof. Two of the League's leading members secretly negotiated to hand large parts of Abyssinia to the aggressor while the League was in session. No constitutional design survives its principal members doing that.

How to turn this into a judgement

The strongest line, and one Cambridge's own exemplars support, is that the structural weaknesses set the ceiling and the members' behaviour decided where under that ceiling the League actually operated. The design made the League slow and unable to compel; it did not make the League refuse to act. Britain and France did that.

1. structure limited what the League could do
2. members decided what it would do
3. in the 1920s those two coincided and the League worked
4. in the 1930s they diverged and it collapsed

5. Focus point: how successful was peacekeeping in the 1920s?

The syllabus names four disputes. Cambridge sets questions on all four and credits several more. Learn the four cold, and learn the extras as supporting range.

The first two below are the ones the League settled. The second two are the ones it failed.

Aaland Islands, 1920 to 1921, a success

• Both Sweden and Finland claimed the islands, which lie in the Baltic Sea.
• Most of the islanders wanted to be ruled by Sweden.
• The League investigated and awarded the islands to Finland, with safeguards for the islanders.
• Sweden accepted the judgment.

Learn the direction of that award. The November 2023 examiner report names "stating the islands were awarded to Sweden" as a specific error. The point that makes this dispute a success is precisely that the League ruled against the majority preference and the losing party still accepted it.

Bulgaria, 1925, a success, also called the Greek-Bulgarian crisis

Greek forces crossed into Bulgaria. Cambridge's mark scheme for "Describe how the League of Nations dealt with the Greek-Bulgarian crisis of 1925" credits all of the following, and it reads as a checklist of the League working exactly as designed:

• the League condemned the Greek action
• it sent military officers to report on what was happening
• it set up a commission of enquiry
• it ordered Greece to withdraw
• Greece was ordered to pay compensation to Bulgaria
• the League sent observers to monitor the Greek withdrawal

A later scheme adds the summary line: "The League acted quickly and stopped the fighting."

Vilna, 1920, a failure

• Polish troops seized Vilna, which was in Lithuania.
• Lithuania appealed to the League.
• The League told the Polish troops to leave.
• The League tried to arrange a plebiscite to decide Vilna's future.
• Poland agreed to the plebiscite at first, then changed its mind.
• The Poles refused to leave, and stayed.

The mechanism Cambridge wants explained is why nothing followed. Its own words: the League "was not prepared to act against Poland as they saw them as a valuable ally, and thus gave out the message that aggression could pay". This is the same mechanism that will destroy the League over Abyssinia fifteen years later, and saying so is exactly the kind of link that reaches Level 5.

Corfu, 1923, a failure

• An Italian general was murdered on Greek soil.
• Mussolini sent forces to bombard and occupy Corfu.
• Greece appealed to the League, which at first criticised Italy and found Italy in the wrong.
• Mussolini refused to let the League have any say and demanded the matter go to the Conference of Ambassadors.
• It did. The Conference ruled that Greece should apologise to Italy and pay compensation, and Italy was awarded a large sum.

Cambridge gives a second layer that is worth having, because it converts an outcome into an explanation: France's armies were tied up in the Ruhr and Britain refused to act without French support, so neither of the League's two leading members was prepared to move against Italy.

1. a major power ignores the League
2. the League has no member willing to enforce its ruling
3. the matter is moved to a body outside the League
4. the aggressor is rewarded
5. every other major power learns the lesson

That last clause is the reason Corfu matters more than its size suggests, and Cambridge's exemplar for "Why was the League's failure over Corfu important?" ends on exactly that note: "This would be a lesson for other powerful countries in the future."

The disputes Cambridge credits beyond the specified content

The specified content names four. The mark schemes set and credit these as well, and one of them has been a whole (a) part and a whole (b) part.

Do not skip Upper Silesia because it is not on the specified list. Cambridge has set "Describe how the League of Nations dealt with Upper Silesia" as a 4 mark question and "Why was there a crisis in 1921 in Upper Silesia?" as a 6 mark question. Section 13 records a date conflict in Cambridge's own materials about this dispute, and which date to use.

The pattern, which is the actual answer to this focus point

Cambridge states it explicitly in a Level 5 exemplar, and if you can state it too you are writing at the top of the band:

1. the League settled disputes when only minor powers were involved, because they lacked the power to refuse
2. it failed whenever a major power was involved, because major powers knew the League needed their support and exploited that
3. so the successes and the failures are the same fact seen twice

Cambridge's own phrasing for the Level 5 version: "when minor powers were involved in the disputes, the League was normally strong enough to deal with the dispute and get the opposing sides to accept its verdict."

And the argument on the other side

If you want a genuinely balanced 10 mark answer on the 1920s, there is one more point available, and Cambridge prints it: the most important international business of the 1920s was done outside the League, in the Locarno Treaties and the Kellogg-Briand Pact. A League that was working would have been the venue for those. That is a way of arguing the 1920s were a failure without needing a single failed dispute.

6. Focus point: how important was the humanitarian work?

This focus point is where "to what extent" earns its keep, because the humanitarian record is genuinely strong and it is the reason the honest answer to the Key Question is not simply "no".

Refugees

• A Refugee Organisation, or High Commission for Refugees, was set up.
• It helped former First World War prisoners of war return home.
• It helped refugees stranded in Russia, Poland, France, Germany and Turkey.
• Hundreds of thousands were housed in refugee camps.
• It acted quickly to stamp out cholera, smallpox and dysentery in the camps.
• It raised money, found suitable transport, set up temporary camps, taught new trades and skills, and issued identity documents, the Nansen passports.
• Fridtjof Nansen headed it, and working with the Red Cross returned 425,000 people to their homes between 1920 and 1922.

That figure and that date range are printed in more than one Cambridge mark scheme, and the November 2022 examiner report specifically records candidates gaining credit for it. It is the most reliably creditable number in this entire Key Question. Learn it exactly.

Health

• A health commission was set up, which later became the World Health Organisation.
• It gave help and advice on public health, including educating people on how typhoid was spread.
• It helped Russia deal with a typhus outbreak, and a typhus epidemic was avoided in Siberia.
• It ran a campaign to exterminate mosquitoes, reducing malaria and yellow fever.
• Its research produced vaccines for diphtheria and tetanus.

One warning from the examiner reports. The June 2021 report records that some candidates attributed these actions "to the WHO rather than the League of Nations". The Health Organisation became the WHO afterwards. In the 1920s it was the League's.

Working conditions

• The League established the International Labour Organisation.
• The ILO collected data on employment practices and used it to put pressure on governments.
• It campaigned for an eight hour day.
• It campaigned for paid holidays and the right of workers to join trade unions.
• It campaigned for a minimum working age, and limited the working hours of young children.
• It made recommendations for improving the safety of workplaces.

Note the verb Cambridge keeps using: campaigned. The ILO could not legislate. It collected evidence and applied pressure. That is both its achievement and its limit, and saying so is a judgement rather than a description.

Slavery

• A Slavery Commission was set up.
• It aimed to stamp out slavery and slave trading, and worked against the trafficking of women and children.
• It freed 200,000 slaves in Sierra Leone.
• Countries including Iraq and Nepal abolished slavery; the examiner reports also credit Liberia, Ethiopia and Burma.
• It published reports and persuaded governments to act.

How important was it, really?

Cambridge has set this as a 10 mark question twice, in two different shapes, so you need a position.

The case that it was the League's real achievement. It touched more lives than any peacekeeping decision. It outlasted the League itself: the ILO and the WHO both still exist. And it worked through exactly the tool the League had, which is evidence and pressure, rather than the tool it lacked, which is force.

The case against. The League was created to stop war. Judged against its own stated purpose, feeding refugees is not the thing it was for. And a second, sharper version: the agencies succeeded precisely because their work required no member state to sacrifice a national interest. The moment it did, over sanctions on Italian oil, the same members refused.

1. the agencies asked members to contribute money and expertise
2. peacekeeping asked members to contribute soldiers and trade
3. the League always got the first and rarely got the second

That single chain lets you argue either side, which is why it is worth memorising.

7. Focus point: how far did the Depression make the work harder in the 1930s?

Read the focus point again. It does not ask what the Depression was. It asks what it did to the League. The March 2022 examiner report names the exact failure: weaker responses, "whilst demonstrating understanding of the causes and events of the Depression, often made no reference to the impact on the League of Nations". The November 2018 report says the same thing about a different series.

What the Depression did to the League, mechanism by mechanism

Cambridge's Level 3 exemplar gives the central chain, and it is worth learning close to word for word:

1. the Depression left many countries struggling economically and trading less
2. members became more reluctant to agree economic sanctions, which would damage their trade further
3. the League was left relying on moral condemnation
4. moral condemnation was largely ineffective

The other consequences Cambridge credits:

• the Depression brought extremists to power in some countries
• it encouraged militarism
• it encouraged countries to annex new lands, in search of raw materials and markets
• it made countries weaker economically, and governments had less to spend
• international trade was suffering, which is what made sanctions unattractive

Notice that the Depression works on the League from two directions at once. It created more aggressors and it disarmed the League's main weapon against them. That double action is the strongest version of the "yes" case.

Manchuria, 1931

Causes. Japan invaded Manchuria, part of China, in 1931. Cambridge credits Japanese militarism, and the search for territory and resources under Depression conditions.

Events and the League's response. This is the part examiners say candidates get wrong most often, because they describe the invasion instead of the response. The response was:

• China asked the League for help.
• League officials sailed to China to assess the situation. There were four officials, including a representative from the USA, which was not a member.
• They spent six weeks in the province, and took a year to complete their report.
• In September 1932 they issued the Lytton Report, named after Lord Lytton, head of the deputation.
• The report judged Japan was in the wrong and said Manchuria should be returned to China.
• The League voted in favour of the report in February 1933, with Japan against.
• Sanctions were discussed but not imposed. No army was sent.
• Japan withdrew from the League in 1933 and invaded further into China.

Cambridge's own summary of the timing is the detail that does the most damage: by the time the League voted on the Lytton Report, eighteen months had passed since the original Japanese action, and Japan was already in control.

Consequences. Cambridge's exemplar for "Why was the Manchurian Crisis important?" runs the consequences forward explicitly:

1. the League could not stand up to a powerful aggressor, even one of its own members
2. all it did was condemn, with no sanctions and no army
3. Mussolini invaded Abyssinia in 1935 despite ongoing negotiations with the League
4. Hitler marched into the Rhineland in 1936, breaking the Treaty of Versailles

One further Level 2 point Cambridge credits and few candidates use: the failure over Manchuria showed the League to be too Eurocentric. A crisis on the other side of the world was beyond both its attention and its reach.

Abyssinia, 1935 to 1936

Causes. Cambridge credits all of these, and they are a good example of a question where four separate reasons beat one deep one:

• Mussolini wanted to boost his popularity
• Italy was facing recession and high unemployment, and Mussolini thought war would help solve its economic problems
• Italy wanted land and valuable minerals
• Italy was disappointed with its treatment in the Versailles settlement, and territory in Abyssinia would make up for it
• Mussolini wanted revenge for the Italian defeat at Adowa in 1896

And the reason that is really about the League: after the first incident at Wal-Wal in December 1934, Abyssinia appealed for help while Italy massed troops on its border, and the League reported that neither side was to blame and even suggested Italy be given part of Abyssinia. Cambridge's own exemplar draws the conclusion: "All this showed Mussolini that if he invaded the League would do nothing."

Events. Italy invaded in October 1935. Abyssinia was overrun. Haile Selassie addressed the Assembly of the League in June 1936, and made plain how useless it had been.

Why the League failed, which is the examinable part.

• Britain and France wanted Mussolini's friendship as a potential ally against Germany, and so were not prepared to act effectively.
• They left the Suez Canal open. Cambridge is explicit that had it been closed, Italian supplies would not have reached Abyssinia.
• The League dithered over sanctions and did not include oil, so Italy could keep moving men and weapons. American oil producers stepped up exports to Italy, which the League could do nothing about.
• Britain and France also declined to sanction coal, to protect their own economies.
• The Hoare-Laval Pact of 1935, negotiated between Britain and France and then leaked to the press, would have given large parts of Abyssinia to Italy. It showed the two leading members were not willing to take tough action.

Consequences. Cambridge's exemplar is unusually final about this one: "From this moment it was simply irrelevant in international affairs... nobody went to the League of Nations for help anymore." And the point that matters for Key Question 3: this was "recognised by Hitler."

Disarmament, which is where the 1930s case is usually decided

Disarmament is not in your specified content by name, but Cambridge sets whole questions on it and it belongs to this focus point.

• The Disarmament Conference ran from 1932 to 1934.
• Not all countries attended. Japan was absent.
• Germany withdrew and began to rearm, complaining that other European countries had not disarmed to the level imposed on Germany at Versailles. Hitler had just come to power and used it as the excuse to leave and start rearming.
• France was afraid of Germany and unwilling to give up weapons while Germany was getting stronger. The French wanted to arm the League itself to prevent war.
• Even before Germany left, there was very little agreement about whether weapons should be banned or restricted.
• The Conference produced resolutions to stop the bombing of civilians and prohibit chemical warfare, but took no action to abolish the planes that could drop the bombs.

A confusion examiners flag. The November 2019 report records candidates writing about Germany leaving the League of Nations when the question was about Germany leaving the Disarmament Conference, and others treating the Treaty of Versailles as though it were the Disarmament Conference. They are three different things in three different years.

The judgement on this focus point

The Depression is the standard answer and Cambridge sets questions designed to test whether you can argue past it. The two most useful counter-positions:

The failures were not new. Vilna in 1920 and Corfu in 1923 both happened in a booming decade, and both failed for the same reason as Abyssinia: a member state's interest outranked the League's ruling. The November 2018 examiner report specifically credits candidates who used Vilna and Corfu to argue the Depression was not the cause.

Britain and France would have behaved the same way in a boom. Their reason for protecting Mussolini was strategic, not economic: they wanted Italy against Germany. A healthy world economy would not have changed that calculation.

8. What the specified content leaves out, and Cambridge examines anyway

A student revising strictly from the syllabus list would arrive without several things Cambridge has set as whole questions. This is worth knowing before you decide you have finished.

None of these is off syllabus. Each sits inside a specified element: the Court and collective security inside "the structure, aims and membership of the League", the extra disputes inside "successes and failures in peacekeeping during the 1920s", and the rest inside "the League in the 1930s". But if you revise only the named bullets you will meet a 4 mark question you cannot start.

9. Where this Key Question stops

The boundary that catches most candidates is the one between this Key Question and Key Question 3, because the same events sit on both sides of it.

Yours. The League's response to Manchuria and to Abyssinia. Why those responses failed. What those failures showed about the League. The Disarmament Conference as a League project.

Key Question 3's. What Hitler did once he had watched those failures: rearmament, the Saar, the remilitarisation of the Rhineland, the Rome-Berlin Axis, the Anti-Comintern Pact, Spain, Anschluss, Czechoslovakia and Munich, the Nazi-Soviet Pact, Poland. That is the B3. How far was Hitler's foreign policy to blame for the outbreak of war in Europe in 1939? notes. Note that Key Question 3's own focus points include "What were the consequences of the failures of the League of Nations in the 1930s?", which is Cambridge telling you the two questions meet there deliberately.

Key Question 1's. The Treaty of Versailles itself, the aims of the Big Three, the terms, the impact on Germany to 1923, and the fact that the League was written into the peace treaties in the first place. That is the B1. Was the Treaty of Versailles fair? notes.

Two specific traps at the seam:

• The Saar. The Saar was administered by the League for fifteen years under the Treaty of Versailles, which is Key Question 1. The 1935 plebiscite in which the Saar voted to rejoin Germany is set as Key Question 3 material, inside Hitler's foreign policy. The March 2020 examiner report records candidates confusing Upper Silesia in 1921 with the Saar plebiscite in 1935, which is exactly this seam.
• Germany and the League. Germany's exclusion is Key Question 1. Germany joining in 1926 and leaving in 1933 is yours. What Hitler did after 1933 is Key Question 3. Cambridge has set a single 4 mark question, "Describe Germany's relationship with the League of Nations during the period 1920 to 1939", that crosses all three, so know the whole arc.

10. What the papers actually ask

These are real stems from the 2018 to 2024 mark schemes, grouped so you can see the families rather than the individual questions. Prepare the family and you have prepared every member of it.

The 4 mark families

Structure and machinery. "Describe how the Assembly and the Council of the League were meant to work." "What were the weaknesses of (i) the Assembly and (ii) the Council in carrying out the work of the League of Nations?" "What was the role of the Permanent Court of Justice?" "What were the agencies of the League of Nations?" "What made it difficult for the League of Nations to act quickly?" "What was meant by 'collective security'?" "What methods could the League of Nations use to deal with international disputes?"

The 1920s disputes. "Describe the dispute over Vilna in 1920." "Describe how the League dealt with the dispute over the Aaland (Aland) Islands." "Describe the dispute over Corfu in 1923." "Describe how the Corfu incident of 1923 was resolved." "What happened during the dispute over Corfu in 1923?" "Describe how the League of Nations dealt with the Greek-Bulgarian crisis of 1925." "Describe how the League of Nations dealt with Upper Silesia." "Describe one failure of the League of Nations in the 1920s."

Humanitarian. "Describe the work of the League of Nations' Slavery Commission." "What was the League of Nations' Slavery Commission?" "Describe the work of the League of Nations in dealing with slavery." "Describe the work of the League of Nations in the areas of health and refugees." "Describe the work of the League in helping refugees." "Describe how the League of Nations helped refugees." "Describe the actions taken by the League of Nations to improve working conditions."

The 1930s. "Describe the League's response to the invasion of Manchuria." "Describe the League's reaction to the Japanese invasion of Manchuria." "Describe the actions taken by Haile Selassie in an attempt to save his country from Italian conquest." "What was the Hoare-Laval Pact of 1935?" "Describe attempts by the League of Nations to encourage disarmament." "Describe Germany's relationship with the League of Nations during the period 1920 to 1939."

The 6 mark families

Membership. "Why were some major powers not members of the League?" "Why did the League not include all countries in its membership?" "Why was the absence of the USA significant for the League in the 1930s?"

Machinery in action. "Why was the League often slow to react to aggression?" "Why did the League fail to bring about disarmament?"

The 1920s. "Why was the League of Nations able to have some successes in the 1920s?" "Why was the League of Nations unable to resolve all the international disputes of the 1920s?" "Why was the League's failure over Corfu important?" "Why were the Greeks dissatisfied with the outcome of the Corfu Crisis?" "Why was the Vilna dispute a challenge for the League?" "Why was the League able to resolve the dispute over the Aaland Islands?" "Why was there a crisis in 1921 in Upper Silesia?"

The agencies. "Why was the work of the agencies of the League of Nations important?" "Why was the work of the League's agencies for refugees and health important?" "Why was the League's work with refugees important?"

The 1930s. "Why did the Depression make the League's work more difficult?" "Why was the Depression important for the League of Nations?" "Why did Japan invade Manchuria in 1931?" "Why was the Manchurian Crisis important?" "Why did the League fail to deal with Japanese aggression following the invasion of Manchuria?" "Why did Japan withdraw from the League of Nations in 1933?" "Why did Italy invade Abyssinia?" "Why did the League of Nations fail to prevent Italy's occupation of Abyssinia?" "Why were the League's sanctions against Italy for invading Abyssinia ineffective?" "Why did Haile Selassie speak to the Assembly of the League of Nations in June 1936?" "Why did the League fail to give effective support to Haile Selassie?" "Why was Haile Selassie unhappy with the way the League dealt with the Italian invasion of Abyssinia?"

The 10 mark families

Was the design fatal? "'The League's lack of an army explains its failure in the 1930s.'" "'The League's lack of an army was the main reason it failed to take effective action over Manchuria.'" "'Its decision-making procedures were the most serious weakness of the League of Nations.'" "'The need to reach unanimous decisions was the main factor preventing effective action by the League.'" "'The main reason for the weakness of the League was the absence of the United States.'" "'It was the behaviour of member states, not the structure of the League, that led to its failure.'" "Which was more important in causing the weakness of the League: its structure or the Great Depression?"

Who is to blame? "How far were Britain and France responsible for the failure of the League of Nations?" "'Britain was responsible for the failure of the League in the 1930s.'" "'Italy was more to blame than Britain and France for the failure of the League.'" "'Britain was responsible for the League's failure to deal effectively with the Italian invasion of Abyssinia.'" "'Britain and France were justified in not supporting strong action by the League against Italy over its actions in Abyssinia.'"

The 1920s record. "'The League of Nations was successful in achieving its aims in the 1920s.'" "'The League of Nations failed in its peacekeeping role.'" "How far do you agree that the League handled disputes between states effectively in the 1920s?" "How far do you agree that the League was a success in the 1920s?" "How well did the League deal with international disputes in the 1920s?" "'The League enjoyed more successes than failures in peacekeeping in the 1920s.'" "'The successes of the League in handling international disputes during the 1920s demonstrated that it had real power.'"

Agencies against peacekeeping. "'The greatest successes of the League were achieved by its agencies.'" "'The humanitarian work of the League's agencies was more important than its failure over the Japanese invasion of Manchuria.'"

The 1930s crises. "How far was the response of the League of Nations to the Japanese invasion of Manchuria justified?" "How far was the response of the League of Nations to the Italian invasion of Abyssinia justified?" "'The League of Nations did as much as it could in relation to the Japanese invasion of Manchuria.'" "'The response of the League of Nations to Japanese actions in Manchuria was surprising.'" "'The crisis over Manchuria had a more damaging impact on the League than the crisis over Abyssinia.'" "'It was the Great Depression that brought about the failure of the League.'" "'It was the World Depression, and not increasing militarism, that made the work of the League in the 1930s more difficult.'" "'Failure to bring about disarmament was the most important problem facing the League in the 1930s.'" "'The main reason the Disarmament Conference failed was the withdrawal of Germany.'"

One thing to notice about that list

Look at how many of the 10 mark stems contain a date limit or a named crisis. "In the 1920s" appears seven times. "In the 1930s" appears four times. "Over Manchuria" and "over Abyssinia" narrow several more. Section 12 explains why that is the trap examiners write about most in this Key Question.

11. What Paper 2 does with the League

Paper 2 gives you six or seven sources on one twentieth century topic and asks you to compare, interpret and evaluate them. Its assessment objective split is 80 per cent sources and no explanation marks at all, so the technique is different from anything on Paper 1.

What transfers is your contextual knowledge, and Paper 2 needs it constantly. The June 2018 examiner report notes that the best answers "explained how contextual knowledge leads to surprise or not surprised", while weaker ones "simply identified a contextual point, for example, the League did not have an army, or Britain traded in the Far East, and failed to explain its significance". The knowledge is necessary and never sufficient.

Two faults the reports name on League source questions specifically:

• Answering a Paper 1 question on Paper 2. The June 2018 report records that "it was common this year for candidates to answer a different question to the one set such as 'How far was the League of Nations successful?'" The Paper 2 question was about the sources.
• Grouping the sources instead of handling them individually. Named in the same report as "a characteristic of weaker answers".

12. What examiner reports say candidates get wrong here

The faults that apply to any question on the paper, overwriting part (a), listing instead of explaining, one-sided part (c) answers, finishing without a judgement, are in the How Cambridge marks History 0470 Paper 1 notes. These are the ones examiners name on this content, and they repeat almost word for word from 2018 to 2024.

• Breaking the date limit, in both directions. This is the commonest fault on this Key Question by a wide margin. Asked about the 1920s, candidates write about Manchuria and Abyssinia: the reports flag it in June 2019, June 2021, June 2023 and November 2023. Asked about the 1930s, candidates write about Corfu: flagged in November 2021. One report puts it exactly: weaker responses were "often secure on the successes of the League in the 1920s" but then "wrote in detail about the League's failures in the 1930s".
• Writing the "why the USA did not join" essay whatever the question is. June 2019: candidates "lost time in explaining the reasons why the USA did not join the League, which was lacking in relevance to this question". June 2021 says the same. March 2018: "Weaker responses explained the impact of the USA not being in the League, which was not relevant to this question." It is the right answer to a membership question and to almost nothing else.
• Confusing the 1920s disputes with each other. Aaland answered as Vilna, and the islands wrongly said to have been awarded to Sweden, in November 2023. Vilna confused with Corfu in November 2022. Corfu "confused with another incident", or left blank entirely, in November 2022 and June 2021. Upper Silesia confused with the Saarland or the Rhineland in June 2023, and with the 1935 Saar plebiscite in March 2020.
• Confusing the agencies with each other. The Slavery Commission answered with Refugee Organisation, Health Organisation or ILO material in June 2019. The Slavery Commission confused with the ILO outright in June 2023. Health work attributed to the WHO rather than to the League in June 2021.
• Describing the crisis instead of the League's response. November 2023, on a question that asked for the League's reaction to Manchuria: answers "were often descriptions of the crisis as a whole, for example the reasons for the invasion, or how Japan completed the conquest". March 2022 says the same about a "surprised or not surprised" question.
• Writing about the Depression without connecting it to the League. March 2022: responses showed understanding of "the causes and events of the Depression" but "often made no reference to the impact on the League of Nations". November 2018: candidates wrote about how the Depression affected America "without linking the points to the failure of the League".
• Getting Haile Selassie's chronology wrong. June 2022 records candidates assuming he addressed the League "at the start of the Italian invasion of Abyssinia in 1935, whereas the date in the question was June 1936".
• Not knowing what the Conference of Ambassadors was. November 2023: on Corfu, "some candidates were not confident of the role of the Conference of Ambassadors". It is the body outside the League that Mussolini went to instead, and that is the whole point of the story.
• Confusing Germany leaving the League with Germany leaving the Disarmament Conference. November 2019, which also records candidates treating the Treaty of Versailles as though it were the Disarmament Conference.
• Answering the general question instead of the specific one. June 2023: "Weaker answers often provided a generic description of the League, rather than addressing the particular focus of the question." March 2018: "Some candidates strayed away from the focus of the question and wrote at length on various aspects of the League."
• Listing every incident without explaining any. March 2018: some candidates "included in their answers nearly every possible success and failure of the League as a peacekeeper, but only briefly mentioned each incident without fully explaining the role of the League". On a 10 mark part, two explained examples beat eight named ones.

13. Where Cambridge's own materials disagree

Three places. Do not try to reconcile them. Know which version to use and move on.

The Option B title. "Since 1919" on the contents page and in the subject content introduction, "from 1919" on the Option B content page header. Use "since 1919".

The date of the Upper Silesia crisis. Cambridge gives it as 1921 in the June 2023 question stem, in a November 2024 mark scheme exemplar, and in the March 2020 examiner report. It gives it as 1923 in a November 2022 mark scheme exemplar which is otherwise word for word identical to the November 2024 one. The 2022 date looks like a slip that was later corrected. Use 1921.

The name of the body Mussolini went to over Corfu. Most mark schemes call it the Conference of Ambassadors. The June 2020 and June 2024 schemes call it the Council of Ambassadors. It is the same body. Examiners will not penalise either name; what they mark is whether you know it sat outside the League and that going to it is how Mussolini sidelined the League.

14. Judgement sentences for this question

Level 5 is Level 4 plus a supported judgement, and it is one sentence. These answer the exact question asked and attach a reason, which is all the mark scheme requires. Adapt, do not copy.

On whether the design doomed it. "The League's structure set the limit of what it could do, but it was the choices of Britain and France that decided what it actually did, because the same machinery that failed over Abyssinia had worked over the Aaland Islands."

On the 1920s. "The League succeeded in the 1920s wherever success cost a great power nothing, which means its record proves its usefulness rather than its power."

On the missing army. "The absence of an army mattered less than it appears, because a League that could not agree to stop selling oil to Italy would never have agreed to send soldiers against it."

On the agencies. "The agencies were the League's greatest achievement and its clearest admission of failure, because they succeeded at everything that did not require a member state to give something up."

On the Depression. "The Depression did not create the League's weakness, it removed the last reason for members to hide it, because Vilna and Corfu had already failed in a decade of prosperity."

On Manchuria against Abyssinia. "Manchuria was more damaging, because it was the crisis that taught Mussolini and Hitler what the League would do, and Abyssinia only confirmed the lesson they had already learned."

On the Key Question as a whole. "The League succeeded at the work it was given and failed at the work it was created for, which is why it can be called both a success and a failure without contradiction."

15. Quick revision

• Aims: stop war, settle disputes peacefully, discourage aggression, encourage disarmament, improve living and working conditions.
• Collective security: Article 10 of the Covenant. An attack on one is an attack on all. Moral disapproval, then economic sanctions, then military sanctions.
• Methods, in order: moral disapproval, vote against, talks, economic sanctions, ask members for an army.
• Assembly: all members, Geneva, once a year, unanimous decisions, sets the budget and admits members.
• Council: permanent plus temporary members elected for three years, meets three to five times a year, settles disputes, every member has a veto, can issue sanctions.
• Permanent Court of Justice: advises and judges, cannot enforce.
• Agencies: Refugee Organisation, Health Organisation (later the WHO), ILO, Slavery Commission.
• Membership: USA never; Germany in 1926, out 1933; USSR in 1934, expelled 1939; Japan out 1933; Italy an original member that later left. "A club for the victorious powers."
• Aaland 1920 to 21, success: Sweden and Finland; most islanders wanted Sweden; the League awarded them to Finland with safeguards; Sweden accepted.
• Bulgaria 1925, success: Greece condemned, commission of enquiry, ordered to withdraw and pay compensation, observers sent to watch the withdrawal.
• Upper Silesia 1921, success: German-Polish industrial border area, plebiscite, rioting, League partitioned it, both sides agreed.
• Vilna 1920, failure: Poland seized it from Lithuania, ignored the League, refused a plebiscite, kept it. The League would not act against a useful ally.
• Corfu 1923, failure: Italian general murdered, Mussolini bombarded and occupied Corfu, League criticised Italy, Mussolini moved it to the Conference of Ambassadors, Greece apologised and paid.
• Also credited: Mosul to Iraq, Turkey accepted; Colombia and Peru; Bolivia and Paraguay.
• Refugees: Nansen, with the Red Cross, returned 425,000 people between 1920 and 1922. Nansen passports.
• Health: typhus in Russia and Siberia, mosquito campaign against malaria and yellow fever, vaccines for diphtheria and tetanus.
• ILO: eight hour day, paid holidays, trade unions, minimum working age, workplace safety.
• Slavery: 200,000 freed in Sierra Leone; Iraq and Nepal abolished slavery.
• Depression: less trade, so members refused sanctions, so the League was left with moral condemnation. It also created extremists, militarism and land grabs.
• Manchuria 1931: China appealed; four officials, six weeks, a year's report; Lytton Report, September 1932; League voted for it February 1933; eighteen months total; no sanctions, no army; Japan left in 1933.
• Abyssinia 1935 to 36: Wal-Wal, December 1934; League said neither side was to blame and offered Italy part of Abyssinia; invasion October 1935; Suez Canal left open; no oil sanctions; Hoare-Laval Pact leaked; Haile Selassie addressed the Assembly, June 1936.
• Disarmament Conference 1932 to 1934: Japan absent, Germany walked out and rearmed, France would not disarm while afraid of Germany, resolutions on bombing civilians and chemical warfare but no action on aircraft.
• On the paper: Question 5 or Question 6, on 30 of 48 papers read, 18 at Q6 and 12 at Q5. Never both in the same paper.
• Marks: (a) four separate points, no credit for elaboration from 2024. (b) two explained reasons for 6. (c) one explanation on each side for 7, plus a stated judgement for 10.

Where these facts come from

History notes are only as good as their sourcing, so this section is deliberately explicit.

Taken from Cambridge's own published 0470 materials, meaning the 2027 and 2028 syllabus, all 48 Paper 1 mark schemes from June 2018 to November 2024, the Paper 2 question papers, and the Principal Examiner reports:

the Key Question, focus point and specified content wording; the question distribution counts in section 2 and the Paper 2 topics listed there; the Assembly, Council and Permanent Court of Justice details; the collective security definition and Article 10; the five methods; every membership date and the American story; the Aaland, Vilna, Corfu, Bulgaria, Upper Silesia and Mosul details; the Colombia, Peru, Bolivia and Paraguay settlements; the Locarno and Kellogg-Briand point; the Nansen figure of 425,000 between 1920 and 1922 and the Nansen passports; the health, ILO and Slavery Commission details including the 200,000 in Sierra Leone; the Depression mechanisms; the full Manchurian sequence including the four officials, six weeks, the Lytton Report of September 1932, the February 1933 vote and the eighteen months; the Abyssinian sequence including Wal-Wal in December 1934, the October 1935 invasion, the Suez Canal, the oil and coal sanctions, the Hoare-Laval Pact and Haile Selassie in June 1936; Adowa in 1896; the Disarmament Conference of 1932 to 1934; and every examiner report fault quoted in sections 11 and 12.

Things this file deliberately does not assert, because the mark schemes read for these notes do not state them and no confident number should be published unchecked:

• the exact date the Covenant came into force, and the number of founding members
• the exact date of the Corfu bombardment, the size of the compensation Greece paid, and the name of the murdered Italian general
• the exact months of the Vilna seizure and of the Aaland award
• the precise percentage split in the Upper Silesian plebiscite and the terms of the partition
• the exact dates the Hoare-Laval Pact was agreed and leaked, and the names of the two politicians beyond their surnames
• the number of member states at any given date, and the League's budget
• the date the League was formally wound up

None of those is needed for a top answer, which is why they have been left out of the body above rather than asserted. If your textbook supplies them, use your textbook.

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