The First World War threw the imperial order into crisis. New states emerged from the great European land empires, while Germany`s African & Pacific colonies, & the Ottoman provinces in the Middle East fell into allied hands. Britain, France, Belgium, Japan, & the British dominions wanted to keep the new states, but Woodrow Wilson & the millions converted to the ideal of self-determination thought otherwise. At the Paris Peace conference of 1919, the allies agreed reluctantly to govern their new conquests according to international & humanitarian norms & under `mandate` from the League of Nations. As The Guardians shows, this decision had enormous consequences. The allies sought to use the League to safeguard imperial authority, but that authority was undermined by the mechanisms for international oversight they had themselves created. Colonial nationalists & humanitarians exploited new rights of petition or opportunities for publicity to expose abuses or scandals; Germans resentful of the loss of their colonies & Italians eager to found a new empire arrived in Geneva to demand a repartition of the spoils. As imperial politicians wearied of continual scandals & crises
- revolts in South West Africa, Syria, Samoa, & Palestine; famine in Rwanda; labour abuses in New Guinea; extortionate oil contracts in Iraq
- they began to question whether independent states might be easier to deal with than territories subject to international scrutiny. Drawing on research in four continents & dozens of archives, & bringing to life a global network of nationalists, humanitarians, international bureaucrats, & imperial statesmen, The Guardians offers an entirely new interpretation of the importance of international organizations in the emergence of the modern world order.