Mona Siegel

Nineteen-nineteen saw an unprecedented wave of female activism unleashed by women who collectively decried the exclusion of “half of humanity” from the peace negotiations. Promises of a new international order rooted in self-determination, popular sovereignty, and social justice served as the catalyst for these women: suffragists, pacifists, labor activists, pan-Africanists, and anticolonialists from Europe, North America, India, Korea, Egypt, China and beyond. Throughout 1919, they congregated in meeting halls and marched in the streets, demanding a voice in the peace negotiations and insisting on representation in democratic states and the new institutions of global governance. In their vision, a just and secure international order depended as much on safeguarding the rights of individuals as it did on facilitating the peaceful coexistence of nations. The result of their activism was an ever-expanding and intersecting network of women’s organizations dedicated to securing gender equality around the world

"Was the end of the First World War a catalyst for progress or the harbinger of future conflict? The essays in this collection address the impact of the end of the First World War, with a focus on the extent to which the end of the war and the Paris peace process encouraged or disrupted the nascent international order. The focus is on western Europe, particularly France. Among the topics addressed are the relationship between gender and peace activism, international and trans-Atlantic connections, and the significance of French domestic politics to international relations. Collectively, the essays extend the ongoing debate about the success of the Treaty of Versailles: they add nuance to the debate by showing how particular issues combined both success and failure. The volume should be of interest to military, diplomatic, and international historians, with particular chapters of interest to a wider range of scholars in European history."--

This chapter demonstrates the difficulties of re-building the academic world in the aftermath of the Great War and also the ways in which the time frames for demobilization extended well into the post-First World War period. Siegel focuses on the efforts of French and German historians to come to an agreement about the content of textbooks dealing with the history of the war. Questions about the culpability for the outbreak of war remained deeply divisive for decades after the war and required multiple attempts by German and French historians to reach a consensus. This chapter investigates the negotiations which began in 1935 and only reached an agreement in 1951.