On that note, I'm thinking of banging up a big post about exactly what went wrong with the League of Nations and what I was trying to do with it.
The LCN was never going to work; at least under the ideals which it was created. I made sure of that. It's original purpose, as proposed by me to the FBC when I was Austria were ignored, and an attempted League of Nations was created. It, at no point was useful directly to Austrian, and by extension Brandenburger needs, and it's death nail was as I said ad naseum, the bureaucracy and inability to be used as per it's original goal.
Essentially, it was useful to me as Austria, because I was able to basically use my position of power (however relative) in Central Europe to make a few demands. If they were not met when I made them, I would leave the LCN. No skin off my back; the relationship and need was very much a one-sided affair. Diplomatic breakdowns during the residual effects of Nukes reign as Brandenburg and Germany caused the war of 1918, which was the final blow to any hopes of the LCN acting in any sort of realistic capacity. In short, the LCN was uneffective from the start, and without complicit Germany/Austrian/Brandenburger support, (which it didn't get) it was doomed to failure.
Another reason I could speculate it failed was, there was no real need for it so soon after a war. Contrary to real life politics, there was no foundation or glue holding everyone together. The fear of a mass Russian attack, or some sort of Brazilian brash ridiculousness might have been a bit scary, but it was never enough to unify the entirety of Europe on one footing. French interests and goals were too different from German or Spanish goals from the get go. There weren't plagues, food-shortages, or anything of that nature that would have caused the member nations of the LCN to figuratively "drop everything", and help one another out. Any needs that I had as Austria or Germany were never met, and all were either completely discarded, or put up for a ridiculous vote.
Finally the LCN was never effective because there was too much of a sense of power parity among the members involved. Austria = Brandenburg = the FBC = Spain. While of course, at various times one or two of those nations may have been a bit "stronger" than the others, it was never enough to give a clear cut victor in a hypothetical war. So it created a situation that each nations was strong enough and independent enough to go about and handle it's own business, as each nations business was largely at odds with one another. I suppose a rather poor comparison would be to a UN with 4-5 nations of the size and power of the United States. Or perhaps a better comparison would be the current EU, if no nations involved really had the interest of each other in mind.
Essentially, in an OOC capacity of course (though this was what, a decade ago?) Austria used the LCN and it's need for Austrian involvement (as a counter-balance to Brandenburg's... uh.. threats and anger) as a platform to propagate it's own position within Europe, at least temporarily enough for German unification to occur. So in a nutshell, it was the LCN that allowed for German unification. Without me and friends being able to take advantage of the ridiculous bureaucracy involved in the situation German Unification would have never occurred. Well, at least in the way it did. So contrary to what might have seemed as a bit of a leap of faith, or
luck was actually a bit more calculated, at least on my part behind closed doors.
