Exam Connection

🎯 Exam Connection

Frequency: This topic appeared in 5 out of 5 recent AQA sittings (VERY HIGH). The League's failures — especially Corfu and the structural weaknesses — are among the most frequently examined topics in Paper 1, Section C.

Typical questions you will face:

• "How useful is Source A to a historian studying the failures of the League of Nations?" (12 marks, AO3) — Evaluate using NOP (Nature, Origin, Purpose). A Level 3 answer evaluates how the source's nature, origin, or purpose makes it more or less useful, supported by own knowledge. A Level 4 answer uses detailed NOP analysis AND deploys specific own knowledge — e.g., using the Corfu Incident (1923) or the disarmament failure to test whether the source accurately portrays why the League failed.
• "Write an account of how the League of Nations failed to keep the peace in the 1920s" (8 marks, AO2) — Analytical narrative with causal links. Level 3 requires showing the MECHANISM of failure — not just "it had no army" but HOW the lack of an army connected to specific failures. Level 4 requires a sustained narrative linking two or more causes: "The League had no army, so it relied on economic sanctions; but without the USA, sanctions were ineffective; and without effective sanctions, moral condemnation was the only tool — which Mussolini simply ignored at Corfu."
• "How far do you agree that the absence of the USA was the main reason the League failed?" (16 marks, AO1+AO2) — Extended essay. Argue FOR (USA's absence made sanctions leaky, removed military credibility). Argue AGAINST (structural weaknesses existed regardless: no army, unanimous voting, Britain and France's self-interest). Note: this essay is 16 marks with NO separate SPaG allocation in Section C.

For Level 4 in the account question — link the weaknesses together: "The League's failures in the 1920s were caused by a combination of interconnected weaknesses. At Corfu (1923), the lack of any military enforcement mechanism meant Mussolini could ignore the League's condemnation. When he appealed to the Conference of Ambassadors, Britain and France preferred to appease Italy rather than risk confrontation. This showed that the structural weakness (no army) and the political weakness (great-power self-interest) reinforced each other — each one made the other more damaging."