Explain why Britain joined the League of Nations in 1919 (12 marks)
Firstly, Britain joined the League of Nations because they wanted to see through that it enforced the ToV as Lloyd George, who wasn’t that enthusiastic about the LON, said he would “make Germany pay” as the ToV would make Germany accept the blame for the war, pay reparations of £6.6 billion which Britain would benefit from, and for a reduction of the army to 100,000 men, 6 submarines and no aircraft. Also all of Germany’s colonies were given to France and Britain, so they would be added to their empire’s and would benefit from them a great deal. So Britain joined the League to ensure they would get the “mandates” as this would help with their economy.
Secondly, in the Fontainebleau Memorandum in March 1919, Lloyd George stated that he did not want the German people to be split up as this would cause a future war as the ToV gave German land to Poland which split them up. This would cause German people to feel more hatred towards the countries who supported the ToV and would want to fight them to unite all ethnic Germans. So Britain wanted to join the League as Lloyd George wanted to make sure that there was a peaceful negotiation between the nations to prevent a war.
Thirdly, Britain joined the League of Nations in 1919 because they wanted to keep the USA as an ally and thought that if they join the League then they’d still be friends with the USA. Woodrow Wilson thought that France and Britain wouldn’t support the League so he only had a vague idea of what the League should be made up of therefore Britain had come up with a concrete scheme which ended up being the framework of the League. So Britain joined the League in 1919 to secure their friendship with the USA, however in March 1920 the US congress rejected the League so Britain ended up being responsible for how the League was organised.
The Research paper on Lower Orders Britain Regions Nation
Modern nationalism could be described as a collective identity, resulting from social and political cohesion. Colin Kidd identifies that the British nation grew in the 18 th century from 'materialism and idealist factors,' This has often been referred to as the influence of religion, the change in industrialisation, growth of Empire and the impact of war. It is arguable that such developments ...
Overall, Britain joined the League in 1919 to maintain peace and to prevent war from happening again as they had suffered a great loss and the mandates would help to boost the economy. So the most important reason as to why they joined the League was because they wanted to ensure that it didn’t split up Germany as this would cause an uproar from Germany and would only spark another war which is what Britain wanted to prevent.
