This article is part of the series The Road to World War II .

The peacemakers of Versailles desired to erect an impregnable wall of international law and order that would perpetuate peace and prevent another Great War. With war-torn Europe longing for peace, this wall in the form of The League of Nations offered a ray of hope. It didn’t take long, however, the walls took their first heavy blow with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria (1931). A blow from which the League would never recover.

The Mukden incident and the Japanese invasion of Manchuria

With self-confidence boosted from the overwhelming victory over Russia in the war of 1905 and Europe licking its wounds in the aftermath of World War I, expansionist Japan turned its eyes to nearby China. The perfect pretext for an invasion came with a bomb explosion near Mukden, along a railway the Japanese had a right to protect. The Japanese didn’t hesitate to blame the Chinese and invaded.

Consequences

The invasion itself was a clear breach of everything the League of Nations stood for. But even more significant to the breakdown of international order than the actual invasion was League of Nation’s failure to act. Instead, a commission (the “Lytton Commission”) was sent to investigate. When the commission issued its report condemning Japan’s invasion, Japan simply withdrew from the League of Nations (February 1933).

The consequences of the League’s unwillingness to act were far-reaching:

• it marked the first breakdown of international law and order that the League of Nations was designed to upkeep
• the position of the League of Nations as a peacekeeper was severely undermined - an aggressive power had successfully resisted the League
• the idea of collective security was challenged as the major powers (Britain and France) were unwilling to act

Fatally to peace in Europe, this encouraged both Mussolini and Hitler to pursue an aggressive foreign policy as they were now convinced that they too would get away unchallenged.