This book examines the history of Herbert Hoover's Commission for Relief in Belgium, which supplied humanitarian aid to the millions of civilians trapped behind German lines in Belgium and Northern France during World War I. Here, Clotilde Druelle focuses on the little-known work of the CRB in Northern France, crossing continents and excavating neglected archives to tell the story of daily life under Allied blockade in the region. She shows how the survival of 2.3 million French civilians came to depend upon the transnational mobilization of a new sort of diplomatic actorthe non-governmental organization. Lacking formal authority, the leaders of the CRB claimed moral authority, introducing the concepts of a humanitarian food emergency and humanitarian corridors and ushering in a new age of international relations and American hegemony.

Examines life under Allied blockade in Northern France, tracing the complex set of actors and organizations involved in supplying the region during wartime Foregrounds France in the history of Herbert Hoover and the Commission for Relief in Belgium, which has been understudied compared to Belgium Appeals to scholars of the history of World War I, diplomatic history, twentieth-century international relations, humanitarianism, non-governmental organizations, modern American history, and modern European history

Autorentext
Clotilde Druelle is Associate Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Limoges, France. She is trained as a geographer and a historian, and her work focuses on business organizations and the economic history of WWI.

Inhalt

1. Herbert C. Hoover: The American Epic.- 2. The Occupation of Belgium and Northern France.- 3. The Significance of the Royal Navy's Blockade of Europe.- 4. The Progressive Coordination of the Supply.- 5. Occupied France: Administration, Protection and Validation.- 6. Time of Contradictions: Supply in the Heart of the Total War, Spring 1917Fall 1918.- 7. The "End of Innocence", 19181919.