Netherlands 1919

Synopsis

One consequence of World War I was the splitting of the trade union movement of various nations into three camps, with two representing the countries involved in the combat and one neutral. After the armistice, the wounds of the war years ostensibly healed very rapidly. Already in February 1919, when peace negotiations in Versailles, France, were still in full flow, representatives from the three blocks met for a conference in Bern, Switzerland. The representatives reached agreement on the need for a new international of labor organizations to be the instrument by which the social struggle would be internationalized. This new and ambitious international trade union, the International Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU), was established formally a few months later in Amsterdam, Netherlands, the city to which it would always remain connected.

Timeline

• 1900: China's Boxer Rebellion, which began in the...