The Invention of International Order: Remaking Europe after Napoleon
2022; Oxford University Press; Volume: 40; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1093/gerhis/ghac057
ISSN1477-089X
Autores Tópico(s)Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics
ResumoPrince Klemens von Metternich, it is said, would wear pyjamas to meetings with foreign ambassadors. This was only natural since these meetings took place in his own drawing room. By 1919, when diplomats from all over the world gathered in Paris to arbitrate the peace following the First World War, the days of pyjama-clad diplomacy were long gone. Diplomacy took place in formal settings and followed protocols. As he boarded the ship carrying him to war-torn Europe, the American president Woodrow Wilson resolved to put a definitive end to traditional diplomatic practices like secret negotiations and arrangements ‘discussed separately or in corners’. Diplomacy would now be guided by lofty principles such as ‘humanity’ and ‘national self-determination’. In practice, the Paris peace conference was not so different from past peacemaking efforts. The future of the international order was still negotiated by only a handful of great powers, all of them imperial. Entire nations whose fates were determined in Paris were not represented at the negotiation table.
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