<P> The Abyssinian crisis showed how the League could be influenced by the self - interest of its members; one of the reasons why the sanctions were not very harsh was that both Britain and France feared the prospect of driving Mussolini and Adolf Hitler into an alliance . </P> <P> On 17 July 1936, the Spanish Army launched a coup d'état, leading to a prolonged armed conflict between Spanish Republicans (the elected leftist national government) and the Nationalists (conservative, anti-communist rebels who included most officers of the Spanish Army). Julio Álvarez del Vayo, the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, appealed to the League in September 1936 for arms to defend Spain's territorial integrity and political independence . The League members would not intervene in the Spanish Civil War nor prevent foreign intervention in the conflict . Adolf Hitler and Mussolini continued to aid General Francisco Franco's Nationalists, while the Soviet Union helped the Spanish Republic . In February 1937, the League did ban foreign volunteers, but this was in practice a symbolic move . </P> <P> Following a long record of instigating localised conflicts throughout the 1930s, Japan began a full - scale invasion of China on 7 July 1937 . On 12 September, the Chinese representative, Wellington Koo, appealed to the League for international intervention . Western countries were sympathetic to the Chinese in their struggle, particularly in their stubborn defence of Shanghai, a city with a substantial number of foreigners . The League was unable to provide any practical measures; on 4 October, it turned the case over to the Nine Power Treaty Conference . </P> <P> Article 8 of the Covenant gave the League the task of reducing "armaments to the lowest point consistent with national safety and the enforcement by common action of international obligations". A significant amount of the League's time and energy was devoted to this goal, even though many member governments were uncertain that such extensive disarmament could be achieved or was even desirable . The Allied powers were also under obligation by the Treaty of Versailles to attempt to disarm, and the armament restrictions imposed on the defeated countries had been described as the first step toward worldwide disarmament . The League Covenant assigned the League the task of creating a disarmament plan for each state, but the Council devolved this responsibility to a special commission set up in 1926 to prepare for the 1932--1934 World Disarmament Conference . Members of the League held different views towards the issue . The French were reluctant to reduce their armaments without a guarantee of military help if they were attacked; Poland and Czechoslovakia felt vulnerable to attack from the west and wanted the League's response to aggression against its members to be strengthened before they disarmed . Without this guarantee, they would not reduce armaments because they felt the risk of attack from Germany was too great . Fear of attack increased as Germany regained its strength after the First World War, especially after Adolf Hitler gained power and became German Chancellor in 1933 . In particular, Germany's attempts to overturn the Treaty of Versailles and the reconstruction of the German military made France increasingly unwilling to disarm . </P>

Who was the architect of the world peace organization created at the end of wwi