The League of Nations was a group of nations that would come together to enforce peace or collective security in the world and try to prevent another event such as World War 1. It was proposed by the US President Woodrow Wilson as part of his Fourteen Points. He wanted all nations after the war the agree on his 14th point and that being the creation of the League. Unfortunately, the goal of achieving global peace was something the group had failed to accomplish due to the outbreak of World War 2. The outbreak of World War 2, caused the League to disband causing some of the nations from the League to fight in WW2. After the war, they would create a new and better version of the League called the United Nations. The group today is now known to have the same goals as its predecessor group and that being global peace.
So why did the League fail? The first reason it failed was the failure of the United States to join the League of Nations. Due to Congress rejecting the ideas of the Fourteen Points of having to interfere to be involved in European affairs and having to enforce the Treaty of Versailles the United States did not join the group they had created. Had the United States joined it would have there would have been a lot more support in preventing conflicts. The United States would have been a key player just how it is today by enforcing a lot of the ideas of collective security that President Wilson had talked about. Another cause was the failure of enforcing the Treaty of Versailles that was proposed by the Allies at the end of the war. The treaty was unfair towards the Germany and would later cause problems for Germany itself. Germany would break the Treaty of Versailles when Hitler had risen to power. This was something that would embarrass the League as they never let Germany join and seeing Germany break the treaty would show the League was incompetent to take action, showing that the League had no power to interfere with what had happened. Also, the members that had joined the League contracted with a lot of the ideas that the League stood for. One being imperialism/colonialism. The League required a lot of members to reduce their militaries after WW1. Two of the League's most prominent members, Britain and France needed a lot of military power to enforce their colonies in Africa and Asia.
While the League had failed to enforce collective security that was the reason behind the creation, it would pave the path for the future gathering of nations. The group that would be created after the failure to prevent World War 2 would be established in Geneva where the headquarters of the League was once there would be the home for the United Nations. The United Nations goals are still to prevent conflict within nations and to prevent another war.
I agree with what you're saying here: the League of Nation does need collective security in order to protect the countries, but how exactly would it ever succeed? It's similar to alliances in a way, just many countries at once, which makes trusting all the countries in the alliances harder due to beforehand tension. I feel like in order for League of Nations, or any big alliances in the future, they would have to fully trust each other, have a common enemy, be willing to sacrifice when needed, and etc in order for such alliance to actually work out rather than crumble down in the face of the enemy like the League of Nations here, even though it lasted a couple years.
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