Winston’s Churchill’s life (1874-1965) corresponded with some important shifts in international organization. As a soldier, journalist, politician, cabinet minister and prime minister, Churchill engaged with a number of international institutions, including the League of Nations, set up in the aftermath of the First World War, and the United Nations, established in the course of the Second World War.

The late nineteenth-century age of industrial globalization ensured that by 1900, a range of international organizations existed that aimed to improve and regulate international affairs. These institutions ranged from non-state entities focused on standardizing measurements like time-keeping, electricity voltages and common weights, to those aimed at advancing new scientific knowledge. ‘Internationalism’ as a word evolved at about the same time as did a range of globally focused political organizations, including two socialist internationals (the first set up in 1864, the second in 1889), liberal internationalist organizations like the Inter-Parliamentary Union (1889) and Institute of International Law (1873), peace organizations, anti-imperial groups like the Pan-African Association (1897) and Subject Races Committee (1907). Women’s groups were particularly adept at mobilizing themselves globally, including the International Council of Women (established in 1888), the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (1876), and Socialist Women’s International (1907).

From the 1860s on, the internationalist activism of these organizations coincided with greater multilateral cooperation between governments, who attended issue-based conferences and signed treaties and conventions that still remain in force today. The most important of these were the Geneva Conventions of 1864 and 1906, which created rules for humanitarian aid in wartime, and the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, which codified the international law of war.

The First World War disrupted these internationalist developments in dramatic ways. Not only did the conflict interrupt global cooperation, its conduct so blatantly disregarded many of the international laws agreed upon in the years before 1914 that it motivated a massive rethink on how international affairs might be conducted when peace returned. After 1918, the newly-established League of Nations aimed to find collective security solutions to prevent war, solve diplomatic crises and protect international trade. During the inter-war period, non-state internationalism also came into its own, much of it aimed at influencing the international conferences that were held to improve the running of the League on issues ranging from disarmament and arbitration to global health, refugee management, drug trafficking, and economic coordination.

The outbreak of the Second World War drastically disturbed the international order again. By war’s end in 1945, a new set of international organizations were formed, many under the aegis of the newly established United Nations.

Where to find documents in the Churchill Archives

The CHAR collections offer numerous insights into the internationalist nature of the early Twentieth Century. The below overview is arranged chronologically, focusing on a few highlighted documents and archives. The list is by no means exhaustive but intended as a starting point for research and reading. Advanced search facilities can provide more targeted results.

International organizations before 1914

CHAR 2 PERSONAL

• CHAR 2/57/55: Letter from James Caird to Winston Churchill, 1912. Letter sent to Winston Churchill asking him to distribute a substantial cheque to aid the relief of the wounded in the Italo-Turkish War of 1912. The money was forwarded to the British Red Cross, the only humanitarian organization recognized by the British War Office.

CHAR 11 OFFICIAL

• CHAR 11/2: First International Congress of Administrative Sciences, 1908 (images 5-13). An invitation to the British government to send representatives to this congress to be held in Belgium to discuss how government bureaucracies can utilize the latest advances in bureaucratic and statistical sciences.

• CHAR 21/4: Official: Cabinet: Hague Peace Conference, 1908. Cabinet’s inter-departmental committee response to the 1907 Hague Conventions, which highlights how integral the conventions on the laws of war, neutral rights and duties, and the humanitarian precepts of the Geneva Conventions of 1906 were to the British government.

• CHAR 21/27: Official: Cabinet: Foreign Affairs, 1911. An overview of cabinet papers on a range of multilateral treaties, including the controversial Declaration of London (which was negotiated by Britain in 1910 but would not be ratified) and its effects on the law of war, wartime trade and the Geneva Conventions of 1906. The papers show how committed the British Foreign Office was to international agreements that helped to protect the interests of British empire in time of war, be it as a neutral or belligerent.

The First World War 1914-1918

CHAR 13 OFFICIAL

• CHAR 13/55/122: Official: Minute on Hague Conference, 1915. Letter from Edward Marsh to Winston Churchill about the ‘terrific fuss’ that is being made in the press about the British women who wish to attend an international women’s peace conference in The Hague. The women looked to find ways of promoting a judicious end to the war and advancing a range of international agendas for a post-war peace.