Chinese delegation, Koo went to Geneva to lodge a formal complaint at the League of Nations, arguing that Japan was guilty of aggression and the League should impose sanctions on Japan, just as it had imposed sanctions on Italy for its aggression against Ethiopia in 1935. Koo did not expect the League to take action, and the failure of the League to save Ethiopia was hardly an auspicious precedent. However, Koo thought an appeal to the League might win public sympathy in the West. At a meeting with the French Foreign Minister Yvon Delbos, Koo learned that the French "advised delay". Koo in turn told Delbos: "The aggression of Japan against China was too flagrant, and if the League should refuse to take cognizance of it, the League would become a complete farce". Delbos cynically told Koo that the League was useless and that "You might as well call for the moon for help as much as the League of Nations". In September 1937, Koo gave a speech to the League, asking for Japan to be declared the aggressor. Koo reported to Nanking that it was clear that "the League could not do much" and that "the matter hinged with Britain and France", the two veto-holding members of the League Council. Both the British and French delegations advised Koo not to ask for sanctions against Japan, warning that the United States was not a member of the League and that sanctions against Japan would only work if the Americans also applied sanctions. Koo himself thought that calling for sanctions would be a mistake as American "collaboration" with imposing sanctions was essential, but the Waichiaopu insisted that Koo ask for sanctions against Japan. Koo was urged to take his case to the League's Far Eastern Advisory Committee instead of the League Assembly, advice he was predisposed to accept. Koo wrote it "was useless to force things if the powers were unwilling" and it was better to "work with them instead of against them". The Waichiaopu rejected his advice and ordered him to make a case for sanctions. On 16 September 1937, Koo gave a speech at the League's Far Eastern Advisory Committee, asking for the League to declare Japan the aggressor, impose wide-ranging sanctions to cripple the Japanese economy and provide China with economic support. In his appeal, Koo listed a number of war crimes committed by the Japanese, being careful