The League of Nations and the revival of conference diplomacy

Despite its risks and inherent complexity, conference diplomacy was revived during World War I and continued afterward, especially during the 1920s. Following the armistice that ended the war, the Paris Peace Conference took place amid much publicity, which was intensified by the newsreels made of the event. United States President Woodrow Wilson had enunciated his peace program in January 1918, including “open covenants of peace openly arrived at” as a major goal for diplomacy in the post-World War I period. His phrasemaking, which entangled process and result, caused confusion. Hundreds of journalists went to the conference only to discover that all but the plenary sessions were closed. Wilson had intended that the results of diplomatic negotiations be made public, with treaties published and approved by legislatures. He largely achieved this goal, as the Covenant of the League of Nations —one of the key treaties set out for signature at Versailles at the end of the Paris conference—required that treaties be registered at the League before they became binding.

The Paris conference adopted many of the Congress of Vienna's procedures, including the differentiation of “powers with general interests” and “powers with special interests,” private meetings of heads of great-power delegations, and the convening of a Conference of Ambassadors afterward in Paris. The peace conference, the treaties, and the later conferences were conducted bilingually in English and French after the United States joined Britain in world councils. As at Vienna, political leaders attended, but kings and princes were strikingly absent in an era of cabinet government and widening electorates. Even more than at Vienna, nongovernmental organizations, most representing national entities seeking independence, sought a hearing at the court of the great powers. Ultimately, some European peoples gained independence, which resulted in an increase in the number of sovereign states.

The chief innovation of the peace negotiations was the creation of the League of Nations as the first permanent major international organization, with a secretariat of international civil servants. The League introduced parliamentary diplomacy in a two-chamber body, acknowledging the equality of states in its lower house and the supremacy of great powers in its upper one. As neither chamber had much power, however, the sovereignty of members was not infringed. The League of Nations sponsored conferences—especially on economic questions and disarmament—and supervised specialized agencies (e.g., the Universal Postal Union). New specialized agencies were established to handle new areas of diplomacy. The International Labour Organization addressed domestic issues and included nongovernmental representatives, and the Mandates Commission exercised slight supervision over colonies of the defeated powers, which had been distributed to the victors technically as mandates of the League.

Despite the presence of a Latin American bloc and a few independent or quasi-independent states of Africa and Asia, the League of Nations was a European club. Diplomats became orators again in the halls of Geneva, but the topics of parliamentary diplomacy were often trivial. Decisions taken in public were rehearsed in secret sessions. On important matters foreign ministers attending League councils met privately in hotel rooms. In 1923 the League revealed its impotence by dodging action in the Corfu crisis, in which Italian troops occupied the Greek island following the murder of an Italian general on Greek soil. In later years the League failed to improve its record in dealing with international crises.

The weakness of the League of Nations was aggravated by the absence of the United States, whose Senate refused to ratify the peace treaties by which the League was created. The Senate's inaction raised questions about the country's reliability—the basis of effective diplomacy—and drew attention to the blurring of the line between foreign and domestic policy and, in the view of some, the irresponsibility of democratic electorates. The public conceived of diplomacy as a kind of athletic contest, cheering its side and booing the opponents, seeking great victories and humiliation of the foe, and fixing on the next score and not on the long term. This attitude rendered good diplomacy—which is based on compromise, mutual advantage, and lasting interests—extremely difficult.

In Europe, where electorates were constantly preoccupied with foreign policy, this problem was most acute. Statesmen, trailed by the popular press, engaged in personal diplomacy at frequent conferences. Foreign offices, diplomats, and quiet negotiation were eclipsed as prime ministers and their staffs executed policy in a blaze of publicity. Governments, led by Britain and Germany, manipulated this publicity to influence public opinion in favour of their policies. As the masses became concerned with such matters, unprecedented steps were taken to bribe the foreign press, to plant stories, and to use public occasions for propaganda speeches aimed at foreign audiences. Because public opinion set the parameters in which foreign policy operated in democratic societies, these efforts had an effect.

Despite these changes, the “new diplomacy” of the early 20th century was, in fact, not so new. For all the oratory at Geneva, the summits of the 1920s, and the specialized conferences and agencies, the negotiating process remained the same. Talks continued to be held in secret, and usually only their results were announced to the public. Meanwhile, diplomats deplored the decline of elite influence and the effects of expanded democracy—e.g., press scrutiny, public attention, and the involvement of politicians—on the diplomatic process.

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