Cambon, the French ambassador to London during the First World War, was the product of a diplomatic world dominated by resident embassies, foreign ministries and bilateral conversations. Multilateral talks, between representatives of several leaders at once, can be traced back to the ancient world; but under the ‘French system’ of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, large-scale multilateral conferences took place only spasmodically, and international organisations tended to be of a practical, regulatory variety, for example to ensure safety at sea or allow postal services to function across borders. Cambon's criticism of large multilateral meetings as likely to degenerate into talk-shops has been echoed many times. But by the time he retired in 1920, the Great War had given birth to multilateral diplomacy at a regular, high level, often involving heads of state and government, not least at the Paris peace conference. What is more, a permanent global security organisation was created in the League of Nations. The British were well placed to take a lead in the League, not only because they were one of its most powerful members, but also because they had experience in administering multilateral negotiations thanks to the system of imperial conferences that had begun before the Great War between Britain and the dominions. The first secretary-general of the League was a British official, Eric Drummond.