Editing Universal Postal Union (section)

=== Bilateral treaties ===
Before the establishment of the UPU, every pair of countries that exchanged mail had to negotiate a postal treaty with each other. In the absence of a treaty providing for direct delivery of letters, mail had to be forwarded through an intermediate country.<ref>{{cite news |last=Beam |first=Christopher |title=How international mail works |url=https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2007/01/how-international-mail-works.html |work=Slate Magazine |date=5 January 2007 |access-date=25 September 2019 |archive-date=17 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230317134541/https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2007/01/how-international-mail-works.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Postal arrangements were complex and overlapping. In 1853, the United States had a postal treaty with [[Kingdom of Prussia|Prussia]], but some states in southern Germany were sending their US-bound mail through France instead. Since there was no postal treaty between the United States and France, the mail had to travel on a British or a Belgian ship. US Postmaster-General [[James Campbell (postmaster general)|James Campbell]] doubted "whether ... the arrangement can be safely continued," but he saw hope in a postal treaty with [[Bremen]] that also covered the [[Austro-German Postal Union]].<ref name="uspg1853">{{cite encyclopedia |title=Report of the Postmaster General, December, 1853 |encyclopedia=Message from the President of the United States to the Two Houses of Congress at the Commencement of the First Session of the Thirty-Third Congress |year=1853 |location=Washington, DC |publisher=Robert Armstrong |pages=699–821 }}</ref>{{rp|721–722}}

Negotiations for postal treaties could drag on for years. The United States drafted a postal treaty with France in 1852,<ref>{{cite book |title=Preliminary Inventory of the Records of the Post Office Department (Record Group 28) |year=1967 |publisher=The National Archives |location=Washington, DC |page=25 |quote=In the same record group there are a proposed postal convention with France, 1852 ... }}</ref> but the two countries disagreed on how to divide the inland postage,<ref name="uspg1853" />{{rp|721}} and a treaty was not signed until 1857.<ref>{{cite book |last=Staff |first=Frank |title=The Transatlantic Mail |year=1956 |publisher=J. DeGraff |page=165 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lxQdAAAAIAAJ |language=en |access-date=22 March 2023 |archive-date=9 October 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241009055229/https://books.google.com/books?id=lxQdAAAAIAAJ |url-status=live }}</ref> However, the treaty was allowed to expire. [[Elihu Washburne]], the new [[List of ambassadors of the United States to France|US Minister to France]], arrived in Paris in 1869 to find "the singular spectacle ... of no postal arrangements between two countries connected by so many business and social relations."<ref name="washburne_memoirs_1">{{cite book |last=Washburne |first=E. B. |title=Recollections of a Minister to France, Volume I |year=1887 |publisher=Scribner |location=New York, NY }}</ref>{{rp|13–14}} The United States and France finally exchanged ratifications of a postal treaty in July 1874,<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |title=Postal convention between the United States of America and the Republic of France, April 28, 1874 |encyclopedia=The Statutes at Large of the United States from December 1873, to March 1875 |volume=XVIII Part 3 |year=1875 }}</ref> just three months before the Universal Postal Union made the treaty unnecessary.<ref name="washburne_memoirs_1" />{{rp|14}}<ref name="washburne_memoirs_2">{{cite book |last=Washburne |first=E. B. |title=Recollections of a Minister to France, Volume II |year=1887 |publisher=Scribner |location=New York, NY }}</ref>{{rp|254–255}} An exasperated Washburne complained, "There is no nation in the world more difficult to make treaties with than France."<ref name="washburne_memoirs_1" />{{rp|13}}
[[File:Memorial for the Union Postale Universelle in Bern.jpg|thumb|The UPU Monument ''(Weltpostdenkmal)'' in Bern, bronze and granite, by [[René de Saint-Marceaux]] (1909), the five continents join to transmit messages around the globe, later adopted (1967)<ref name="ICAO">{{cite web |title=The Postal History of ICAO |website=applications.icao.int |url=https://applications.icao.int/postalhistory/icao_and_the_universal_postal_union.htm |access-date=22 May 2021 }}</ref> as the organization's logo{{NoteTag|A postage stamp honouring the sculptor and the monument was issued jointly by Switzerland and France.}}]]