So the other day I was digging through old history stuff for my channel, right? Wanted to know why the League of Nations flopped so hard. Everyone always says World War II happened ’cause the League screwed up. Okay, makes sense… but how exactly? Grabbed some dusty books and started scrolling Wikipedia like it’s 3AM (honestly, might’ve actually been 3AM).
What Went Down (The Start)
First thing I do is try to understand who was even invited to this peace party. Stumbled across the original member list. Where’s the United States? Wait, seriously? The whole thing was basically President Wilson’s baby! Did some more digging – turns out Congress gave the whole plan the finger. Big red flag already. How you gonna have a world police station without one of the top cops?
Next stop: figuring out the rules. Started reading the League’s covenant, trying not to nod off. Got to the part about making decisions. Everyone gotta agree? Like, literally every single member? Found an article describing a meeting where some tiny country blocked everything over something stupid. Felt like the biggest idiot scratching my head. How does ANYTHING get done like that? No way to strong-arm troublemakers either – no real army, just a lot of finger-wagging.
The Really Dumb Stuff (Digging Deeper)
Okay, so setup was shaky. What actually went wrong? Focused on the big mess-ups everyone mentions:
- Manchuria Mess (1931): Japan rolls into China, acts like they own the place. League sends folks to look around… then basically shrugs and says “pretty please stop?” Japan just laughed and quit the League instead. Useless.
- Italy Walks All Over Ethiopia (1935): Mussolini wants an empire, picks on Ethiopia. League kinda sorta tries sanctions, but forgets to stop selling Italy stuff it actually needed for war, like oil. Ethiopia got flattened. League stood there watching. Pathetic.
Germany Rearming (Hitler Time): Hitler blows up the League’s disarmament rules right in their face, builds a massive war machine. League sends angry letters. Hitler shreds them. No muscle, just panic.
Sitting Out Spain (1936): Big, nasty civil war starts in Spain. Fascists fighting democrats. League sees it, knows it’s bad news… and ducks behind the sofa. Zero help. Let the problem fester.
Reading about this stuff made me want to yell at my laptop. It’s like they saw a fire and brought a squirt gun. Every time something big popped off, the League froze. Scared of the tough guys, couldn’t agree on anything useful, just talked and talked. Felt useless even trying to summarize their ‘actions’ – barely deserved the name.
The Final Realization
After piecing all this together, one afternoon I’m just sitting there, thinking. This wasn’t just bad luck or a few mistakes. The whole setup was broken from day one. The biggest powers were either missing (USA), half in/half out (Britain/France played both sides), or actively trying to break it (Germany, Italy, Japan).
The League depended on countries wanting to play nice. When bullies showed up who didn’t give a damn? Game over. No power, no courage, no united front. They tried diplomacy when they needed teeth. Honestly, it’s a miracle it lasted as long as it did. Explains everything – why no one took it seriously later, why it collapsed so fast when things got hot.
Even my cat seemed to understand the pure frustration when I explained it to him later. Total paper tiger. Makes you appreciate how much harder they tried with the UN after seeing how spectacularly this failed. But man, looking back… yeah, it was doomed by its own design and weak sauce reactions. Same crap still happens today sometimes, just wrapped differently. Useless talking shops.
