Herbert C. Hoover: The American Epic

Druelle, Clotilde

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-05563-9_1

Herbert C. Hoover: The American Epic

Clotilde Druelle²

Chapter
First Online: 14 March 2019

Abstract

Herbert Hoover wrote extensively about his long public life in An American Epic. He began with the occupation of Belgium and Northern France, yet whole sections of the history of the First World War in France remain unrecognized. Druelle rectifies this omission in this book. Hoover’s Commission for Relief in Belgium (CRB) is the de facto original International Non-Governmental Organization (INGO) with a raison d’être of supplying civilians behind the German lines with needs from food to energy. Hoover was tackling an immense problem of procurement, transport, equitable distribution, and immediate or deferred settlement of purchases. The CRB was not a charity, although Hoover was working altruistically and not for profit. Why has history misremembered him, disliked him when his humanitarian core is evident throughout this book?

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Notes

1.
Annette Becker, Les Cicatrices rouges 14–18. France et Belgique occupées, Paris, Fayard, 2010.
2.
Alain Chatriot, Une véritable encyclopédie économique et sociale de la guerre, L’Atelier du Centre de recherches historiques [Online], March 1, 2009; See also M. Camille Meillac, with R. Parturier and J. Louwyck, L’effort du ravitaillement français pendant la guerre et pour la paix 1914–1920, Paris, Librairie Félix Alcan, 1921; Erik Langlinay, Consommation et ravitaillement durant la Première Guerre mondiale (1914–1920). In Alain Chatriot, Marie-Emmanuelle Chessel, Matthew Hilton (eds), Au nom du consommateur: Consommation et politique en Europe et aux États-Unis au XXe siècle, Paris, La Découverte, 2005, pp. 27–44.
3.
Pierre Grosser, L’histoire des relations internationales à l’épreuve des interactions transnationales. In Robert Frank (ed), Pour l’histoire des relations internationales, Paris, PUF, 2012.
4.
The Swiss ICRC case is studied by Irène Herrmann and Daniel Palmieri. Also, Bruno Cabanes, The Great War and the Origins of Humanitarianism, 1914–1924, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2014. For the USA: John Branden Little, Band of Crusaders: American Humanitarians, the Great War, and the Remaking of the World, California, University of California Berkeley, 2009; and Humanitarian Relief and the Analogue of War 1914–1918. In Jennifer D. Keene and Michael S. Neiberg (eds), Finding Common Ground: New Directions in First World War Studies, Leiden and Boston, Brill; Julia Irwin, Making the World Safe: The American Red Cross and a Nation’s Humanitarian Awakening, New York, Oxford University Press, 2013.
5.
Antoine Fleury, Human Rights and Humanitarian Issues. In Robert Frank (ed), Pour l’histoire … op. cit.; also Michael Barnett, Empire of Humanity: A History of Humanitarianism, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2011.
6.
Cédric Cotter, Irène Herrmann, Les dynamiques de la rhétorique humanitaire. Suisse, États-Unis et autres neutres, Relations Internationales, 4/2014, no. 159, pp. 49–67.
7.
Thomas David and Ludovic Tournès (eds) Philanthropies Transnationales, 11/2014; Ludovic Tournès, Sciences de l’Homme et Politique. Les fondations philanthropiques américaines en France au XXe siècle, Paris, Editions des Classiques Garnier, 2011; Ludovic Tournès (ed), L’argent de l’influence. Les fondations américaines et leurs réseaux européens, Paris, Autrement, Collection Mémoires, 2010.
8.
The Joint Distribution Committee was founded in 1914 to aid the Jews of Palestine. It extended its activities in Central Europe and Soviet Russia at the end of the First World War.
9.
The American Friends Service Committee was constituted in 1917; its first interventions concern France and Central Europe. See, Chapter 2.
10.
Maartje M. Abbenhuis, The Art of Staying Neutral: The Netherlands in the First World War, 1914–1918, Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 2006; also the other references below in Chapter 3.
11.
Joan Hoff Wilson, American Business & Foreign Policy, 1920–1933, The University Press of Kentucky, 1971; also Joseph Brandes, Herbert Hoover and Economic Diplomacy, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1962.
12.
Herbert C. Hoover, The Ordeal of Woodrow Wilson, New York, McGraw-Hill, 1958. Significantly, for the first time a former President of the USA devotes a book to one of his predecessors. See also the correspondence of the two men: Francis William O’Brien (ed), The Hoover-Wilson Wartime Correspondence: September 24, 1914, to November 11, 1918, West-Branch, The Hoover Presidential Library Association, and by the same editor, Two Peacemakers in Paris: The Hoover-Wilson Post-Armistice Letters, 1918–1920, London, Texas A&M University Press, 1978.
13.
Adam Tooze, The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy, London, Allen Lane, 2006 (1e).
14.
John Branden Little, The Humanitarian Mobilization of American Cities for Belgian Relief, 1914–1918, Cahiers Bruxellois—Brusselse Cahiers, 2014/1E (XLVI), pp. 121–138.
15.
René Girault, Etre historien des relations internationales, Paris, Publications de la Sorbonne, 1998, p. 28.
16.
Paul Collinet and Paul Stahl, Le ravitaillement de la France occupée, Publications of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Paris, PUF, 1928, 183 pp.
17.
A lower case “n” is used in reference to northern occupied regions; capital “N” is reserved for the French administrative district of département du Nord.
18.
Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University. Register of the Commission for Relief in Belgium 1914–1930 (591 manuscript boxes, 49 oversize boxes, 17 card file boxes, extending 274 linear feet [c.84 m]). This source is identified throughout as “CRB box no. #”.
19.
George I. Gay, with H. H. Fisher, Public Relations of the Commission for Relief in Belgium: Documents, Stanford University Press, Stanford University, California, vol. 2, 1929. The book complements three previous publications: George I. Gay, The Commission for Relief in Belgium, Executive personnel, Balance Sheets and Accounts, Statistical Data, New York, 1920, and George I. Gay, The Commission for Relief in Belgium, Statistical Review of Relief Operations, Stanford University Press, 1925; Tracy Barrett Kittredge, The History of the CRB from 1914 to early 1917, London, Crowther and Goodman, Ltd., 1920 (the author is one of the organization’s delegates, the book was not distributed). Also Ryan Thomas Austin, Creating a “Piratical State Organization for Benevolence,” the Commission for Relief in Belgium: 1914–1915, Iowa State University Graduate Theses and Dissertations, 2009. The author bases his study on the testimonies and documents published by the actors and on the American and British press. See also the more recent J. Branden Little, Band of Crusaders … op. cit.
20.
George H. Nash, The Life of Herbert Hoover, Vol. 2: The Humanitarian 1914–1917, and Vol. 3: Master of Emergency 1917–1918, New York, Norton, 1988 and 1996.
21.
H. Hoover, An American Epic … op. cit., Dedication.
22.
The history of the CNSA is described in a volume of the Belgian series of the Carnegie Foundation; it does discretely mention the role of the CRB and Hoover: Albert Henry, L’oeuvre du Comité National de Secours et d’Alimentation pendant la guerre, le Ravitaillement de la Belgique pendant l’Occupation, Publications de la Dotation Carnegie pour la Paix Internationale, Paris, PUF, 1924.
23.
Annette Becker, Les Cicatrices Rouges 14–18 … op. cit.; Philippe Nivet, La France occupée 1914–1918, Paris, Armand Colin, 2011; Philippe Salson, L’Aisne occupée. Les civils dans la Grande Guerre, Rennes, PUR, 2015; and James Connolly, The Experience of Occupation in the Nord, 1914–1918. Living with the Enemy in First World War France, Manchester University Press, 2018.
24.
Stéphane Lembré, La guerre des bouches, 1914–1919, Ravitaillement et alimentation à Lille, Lille, Presses du Septentrion, 2016.
25.
Contemporaries used the term “Holland” to refer to the Netherlands. Both are used interchangeably herein.
26.
Nina Almond and H. H. Fisher, Special collections in the Hoover Library on War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford University, California, 1940.
27.
About 60 boxes of materials concerned more particularly the supply to the invaded French regions.
28.
The Herbert Hoover Presidential Library (HHPL) also collects the papers of many CRB collaborators.
29.
Marjorie Milbank Farrar, Conflict and Compromise: The Strategy, Politics and Diplomacy of the French Blockade, 1914–1918, Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, 1974.
30.
Ministère des Affaires étrangères, Commission de publications des documents diplomatiques français, 1914, 1915, vol. 3, Bern, PIE Peter Lang, 2002; Robert Frank and Gerd Krumeich, Documents diplomatiques français, Armistices et Paix, 1918–1920, vol. 1, September 27, 1918–January 17, 1919, Berne, PIE Peter Lang, 2014, presents Hoover only as president of the US Administration of Supply and chairman of the Allied Supply Board.
31.
MAE Political and commercial correspondence, CPC—A War 1914–1918, Belgium: General Dossier 1, CPCOM cartons 410–427, Refueling 1, CPCOM boxes 428–466: they concern only occupied France. This first series is accessible only in microfilmed form. In paper form, we add Peace Series Europe 1918–1929, boxes series Z, 145–159, which relate to France and the continuation of the action of the CRB in the Départements released. The bundles are hereafter cited as MAE, box number, page(s), and MAE Series Z, box number, page(s).
32.
MAE: PA 113 Pierre de Margerie, PA 93 Jean Jules Jusserand, PA 166 André Tardieu, PA 72 Aimé Joseph de Fleuriau. Paul Cambon, Correspondence 1870–1924, vol. 3. 1912–1924, Paris, Grasset, 1940–1946; Jules Laroche, Au Quai d’Orsay avec Briand et Poincaré, 1913–1926, Paris, Hachette, 1957.
33.
Thanks to Roger Nougaret, Head of Archives and History of the BNP Paribas Group for making available the archives of the Dutch loan.
34.
Archives départementales du Nord (AD Nord), série 9 R Guerre de 1914–1918.
35.
Archives municipales de Lille série 4 H. Pierrick Houziaux, Guide des sources de la Première Guerre, 2014, City of Lille, online.
36.
The Hispano-Dutch Committee for the Protection of Supply in Belgium and in the north of France, foreword, summary of his speeches, official documents, Antwerp, undated, 295 pp.
37.
Oscar von der Lancken-Wakenitz, Gouverner en Belgique occupée – Rapports d’activité, 1915–1918, Critical Edition, by Michaël Amara and Hubert Roland, on the initiative of M. Dumoulin and J. Gotovitch, Brussels, PIE Peter Lang, Coll. Comparatisme et Société, no. 1, 2004.
38.
Idem., Introduction.
39.
This episode is studied in particular by Nathalie Renoton-Beine, La Colombe et les tranchées. Les tentatives de paix de Benoît XV pendant la Grande Guerre, Paris, Cerf, 2004.
40.
Odile Gaultier-Voituriez, Chroniques cachées de la Grande Guerre. Lettres d’Etienne de Nalèche à Pierre Lebaudy, Paris, CNRS Editions, 2017.

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Department of History, University of Limoges, Limoges, France
Clotilde Druelle

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Druelle, C. (2019). Herbert C. Hoover: The American Epic. In: Feeding Occupied France during World War I. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05563-9_1

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05563-9_1
Published: 14 March 2019
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-05562-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-05563-9
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