Corfu,1923

After the Greco-Italian war, that was a conflict between Italy and Greece during the
2WW, the boundary between Greece and Albania was delimited. The conference of
Ambassadors was in charge of this work and they called Tellini, an Italian general, to
supervise it. The 27 of August while Tellini and his team were exploring the Greek
side of the frontier area, they suffered an attack and unfortunately they were killed.
Musolini blamed the Greek Government for the assassination . This led Italy to send
an ultimatum to Greece on August 29th. Greece accepted 4 demands rejecting the
other 3, including the payment of 50 million lire. On 31 of August he attacked and
occupied Corfu, a Greek island, and in the process they killed fifteen people, 30 were
injured and 2 civilians ended up needing amputations. However the victims were not
soldiers, in fact they were all refugees and orphans, the majority of those killed were
children. The commissioner of the UK-based Charity saved the children found. He
described the Italian bombardment as inhumane, revolting, unjustifiable and
unnecessary. Greece contacted the League of Nations for help and they already had
protocols if something like this happened that were Article 12 and 15. On 7 of
September the judgment was prepared. On this day Mussolini's actions were
condemned and also concluded that Greece had to pay to Italy but when and if the
killers of Tellini were found. Mussolini did not agree that this issue had to be taken by
the League but yes by the Conference of Ambassadors, so he threatened to leave
the League

The conference of ambassadors announced to Greece and Italy as well as the

League of Nations the ¨9 terms¨, which both accepted. The Greek delegate informed
the council that Greece had deposited the 50 million lire, according to what was
agreed. On September 15th the ambassadors conference informed Mussolini that
Italy must evacuate Corfu by September the 27th.
On September 26th Italy gained the 50 million lire, and also placed all the blame of a
crime on Greek authorities and demanded Greece paid 1 million lire per day of the
occupation of Corfu to satisfy the resources used by Italians throughout the invasion.
Finally on September 27th Italy evacuated Corfu. VICEN

Reasons why the League failed: British and France didn't stand together. This
means that the British didn´t accept the Italian case and they were prepared to send
warships to force Mussolini out of Corfu but France disagreed because their forces
were joined with Italy in the Ruhr and they couldn't challenge a dispute with them.
The French argument for not helping Britain to attack was that Mussolini´s action did
not constitute an act of war. They said this to avoid being involved in two issues
because their troops in that year were against Germany so they didn't have the
energy to attack and didn't want to. FRANI
The Corfu incident led to further tensions between Albania and Greece due to the
Albanian support of Italian actions. But most importantly the crisis was the first major
test for the League of Nations, which they failed, proving that the League was weak
and that it could not protect smaller nations from larger powers. VICEN

SOURCE ANALYSIS 1 (CONTEXT PAGE 16 CONFLIT RUHR)

● The conference of ambassadors were in charge of ruling the dispute as

Mussolini liked. They agree that Mussolini was free of charges and Greeks
had to apologize, pay compensation to Italy and the cost of the occupation.
● 27 of September: Mussolini retired from Corfu showing off his triumph.
● The league were furious over the Ambassadors actions and the lawyers of the
league challenged the decision. However this didn't affect the decision
● A historian Zara Steiner said “this dispute show that the weakest of the great
powers (Italy) achieved what they want because Britain and France agree to
sacrifice Justice instead of cooperating”

● THE GENEVA PROTOCOL: After the corfu incident, it was shown that the
League of Nations could be undermined by their own members.
● In 1924 Britain and France created this protocol that said if 2 members of the
League were in dispute, the league would have to solve it, accepting the
decision of the Council (SUPERIOR OF LEAGUE). This protocol was
supposed to improve the League. Before this plan was in practice, Britain had
elections. The new Government refused to sign the protocol because they
didn't want to be in any problem because of accepting something they don't
care about. This protocol finally had weakened the League more than before
(this make all the contrary objectives this protocol had). BIAN

.
 Primary Source

RUHR: (to understand the source we have to refresh what had happened
before between France and Germany)

The Ruhr Crisis was a period of political and economic tension between France and
Germany in the early 1920s. It was triggered by Germany's failure to make
reparation payments as required by the Treaty of Versailles after World War I. In
response, French and Belgian troops occupied the Ruhr region in Germany in 1923
to enforce the payment of reparations.

This is a conversation between Mussolini and Mr Poixcare (a french man). The

Frenchman asks Mussolini when he will evacuate Corfu, to which he answers that he
is not going to leave Corfu till the 27th of September. Then he adds a phrase in
french, which says: I'm there, I stay there. Mr Poixcare was surprised because he
spoke in French, so he asked where he learned from, and Mussolini answered:
Guess! (Implying that he learned from him).
This sarcastic source makes us know that Italy followed the steps of France, since at
that time in 1923 France was occupying Ruhr.
Activity
1- Explain the following source:

2- Why did the League of Nations fail?

Bibliography
Source 1:
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4k
6QocdjZb0KfbJUWZ5eNbKze0M7UDr0j1wH0U7id4dgOlKMM_GBx2
whr8TSkFQH0ZmdqZi4dDgnX6rTlx24w9NwTAkB7TqQOobVVKkYPF
XpIC53UTV56h8-HIrrG6qtVrkPY0wD1kuU/s1600/InterWar-Cartoons-
Punch-Magazine-Raven-Hill-1923-09-19-277.jpg

Source 2:
https://www.prints-online.com/1923-corfu-incident-14274741.html

Activity source:
https://magazine.punch.co.uk/img-get/I00000CB9jfVWurQ/s/1200/I0
0000CB9jfVWurQ.jpg