390 Between Yesterday and Tomorrow (1914– )played host to these eminent refugees. But much suff ering was infl icted in
the pro cess.
Desperate Times
In the 1930s, the League of Nations unraveled. An early casualty was the mi-
nority protection system. It had never worked very satisfactorily at the best of
times— and these were far from the best of times. Th e German- Polish bilat-
eral treaty on Upper Silesia of 1922 had been concluded only for a fi ft een- year
duration, and there was no surprise when, in 1937, it was allowed quietly to
die off without even an attempt at renewal. Th ere was, however, considerable
surprise— and consternation— when the Polish government, in 1934, dra-
matically announced the repudiation of its minorities treaty with the League.
Minority protection by the League, it protested, had been “applied in an abu-
sive manner,” as an instrument of po liti cal pressure.
Th ere were dramatic failures, too, in the realm of collective security, with
the Japa nese takeover of Manchuria in 1931 and the Italian conquest of
Ethiopia in 1935– 36. One of the consequences of these setbacks was a gen-
eral loss of confi dence in collective security as a bulwark against aggression.
Th is was manifested in several ways. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain
of Britain candidly informed the British House of Commons in February
1938 that the League was “unable to provide collective security for anybody”
and that, as a consequence, the obligation to impose economic sanctions
against aggressors in the League Covenant was no longer operative.
In this same vein, there was a tendency for states that had previously been
neutral to reassert that status as a substitute for the unfulfi lled promise of
the League. Th e Swiss government announced that it was reverting, “by an
instinct of self- preservation, to its full traditional neutrality.” Belgium
similarly secured its release from various collective security commitments
and resumed its former status as a neutral state. In legal circles, too, there
were assertions that the League Covenant had been amended de facto, if not
formally— that is, by way of state practice— so as to abrogate the (suppos-
edly) automatic provisions for mutual guarantee and sanctions.