A "Gift" from the Great War—The Universal Passport System

Wartime Passport Control on  the Nemunas River between Tilsit and Kaunas

A 1922 International Labor Organization's report succinctly summarized the impact of the war on international travel. It pointed out that for much of the 19th century, migration was, generally speaking, unhindered and each emigrant could decide on the time of departure, arrival or return, to suit his own convenience. In periods of peace, passports were a rare requirement, although there were notable special cases, such as the border between the Ottoman and Russian empires and pre-unification.  But World War I's outbreak brought harsh restrictions on freedom of movement. In 1914, warring states of Great Britain, France, Germany, and Italy were the first to make passports mandatory, a measure rapidly followed by others, including the neutral states of Spain, Denmark, and Switzerland. The British were the first to issue modern-style, photo-ID booklets. 

At the end of the war, the regime of obligatory passports was widespread. In reaction, the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, which established the League of Nations, stipulated that member states commit to “secure and maintain freedom of communications and of transit.” To facilitate freedom of movement, participants agreed instead to establish a uniform, international passport, issued for a single journey or for a period two years. This is how we ended up with the format of the passports we use today. Participants also decided to abolish exit visas and decrease the cost of entry visas.

1916 Issue Passport for Austrian Scientist Georg Grasser

The first passport implementation conference was held in Paris in 1920, under the auspices of the League of Nations (the predecessor of the United Nations). Part of its Committee on Communication and Transit’s aim was to restore the prewar regime of freedom of movement.

Fences, however proved easier to build than to dismantle. The conference initially  recognized that restrictions on freedom of movement affect “personal relations between the peoples of various countries” and “constitute a serious obstacle to the resumption of normal intercourse and to the economic recovery of the world.”

Special Wartime Passport for a U.S. Postal Worker

But its delegates also concluded that security concerns prevented, for the time being, the total abolition of restrictions and the complete return to prewar conditions which the Conference hopes, nevertheless, to see gradually re-established in the near future. To facilitate freedom of movement, participants agreed instead to establish a uniform, international passport, issued for a single journey or for a period two years. This is how we ended up with the format of the passports we use today.

In 1947, the first problem considered at an expert meeting preparing for the UN World Conference on Passports and Frontier Formalities was “the possibility of a return to the regime which existed before 1914 involving as a general rule the abolition of any requirement that travelers should carry passports.” But delegates ultimately decided that a return to a passport-free world could only happen alongside a return to the global conditions that prevailed before the start of the first world war. By 1947, that was a distant dream. 

Sources:  80 Years of Fee; The Treasure Bunker; The Postal Museum