Danzig Unmasks the Impotence of the League of Nations

The League of Nations was entering its death throes as was painfully obvious from the latest deliberations over the Free State of Danzig, an island of ethnic German territory surrounded by Poland, theoretically controlled by the League. The League’s Committee of Three which had been given oversight of the issue – Britain, France and Sweden – all but admitted that the situation was desperate, when faced with the question of settling grievances between the Poles and the Danzigers. It was simply accepted that the process would be a bilateral one, although the elephant in the room – Nazi Germany – was ignored. Danzig’s autonomy was largely fictional and, in practice, Berlin would make the decisions. Two and a half years later, Berlin took the decisions that caused the Second World War. The British government was once again taken to task In Parliament for the slow pace of air rearmament with Sir Thomas Inskip, displaying once again his weaknesses as Minister for Coordination of Def