The Commission For Relief In Belgium 7: The Power Of The Banques

Perhaps the cleverest aspect of the whole CRB business was that it dealt mainly in money and kept its own books, accountable to no-one. It sought more from all possible sources with unbridled avarice. Appeals for Belgian relief were initiated across the English-speaking world from 1914 onwards, and it has been assumed that the generous giving from ordinary people sustained the international programme. This was simply untrue. Although the word American was literally stamped across all that was imported (it was generally called ‘American Relief’ even in Belgium), most of the food for the people of Belgium and Northern France was financed by the Allied governments. So too, were the supplies that sustained Germany and the German army on the western front. The volume of funds required was enormous, and well beyond the scope of charity. Banks, and in particular banks that had international connections, were absolutely central to the control and abuse of Belgian relief.

As early as November 1914, a loan of $3,000,000 had been advanced from the immensely wealthy Belgian Bankers associated with the Comite National for the purchase of food for Belgium. It was a loan, not a gift. However, Herbert Hoover unilaterally announced that these funds had been granted to his organisation to be used for transportation. As we previously explained, that was a lie aimed at undermining a rival organisation under the Rockefeller banner. No such restriction had been laid down by the Belgians. [1] Indeed at exactly the same time as he was dictating that the loan from the Comite National was for transport, Hoover was negotiating with American suppliers for free transportation of grain across the United States. [2] Hoover was absolutely determined to be the sole controller of money, food-purchase and transport and to crush any parallel charitable organisation. Over the next three years he brooked no rival and successfully negotiated with national governments and international banks for loans totalling multiple millions of dollars…. and how and where it was spent. Such was the power he assumed that an independent observer might have believed it was Hoover’s money.

Belgian banks formed a formidable and influential power-base at the core of European and international finance in the last decades of the nineteenth century and grew rich on the exploitation of the Congo, China and South America. The principal independent Belgian bank, the Societe Generale de Belge stood above them all. From 1902 it launched a number of foreign expansions and in 1913, its most significant move was to make the Banque Sino-Belge an official subsidiary of the Societe Generale under the title of the Banque-Belge pour L’Etranger. [3] To all intents this appeared to be a benign decision based on natural expansion, but its branch office in London served as the headquarters of the Societe Generale outside occupied Belgium during the First World War. The connection was absolutely critical to the dealings of the Comite National between 1914-1918.

A second important connection stemmed from the Banque d’Outremer, an international company for commerce and industry. Formed in 1899, its shares were owned by an interesting combination of Rothschild banks, Belgian financiers enriched by the rape of the Congo, and British investors close to the Secret Elite. The Societe Generale was the largest subscriber closely followed by Rothschild’s Banque de Paris et des Pays Bas, Banque Leon Lambert and Cassel & Cie. Both Sir Ernest Cassel, King Edward VII’s banker [4] and Sir Vincent Caillard, of Vickers, friend of Lloyd George and Basil Zaharoff, were shareholders. Co-incidentally, its specialism was mining and metallurgy and Banque d’Outremer bought large shareholdings in companies across the globe. [5]

A further ‘co-incidence’ was that Emile Francqui, the President of the executive committee of the Comite National de Secours et Alimentation, (CNSA) was a director of both banks, the Outremer from 1905-11 and the Societe Generale from 1911 onwards. In 1915, when the Chairman of Outremer, Albert Thys, died suddenly, Francqui took control of both it and the Societe Generale. [6] When one considers the financial and banking power held by these individuals alone and their direct association with the Secret Elite, it is little wonder that the phrase ‘money-power’ became common parlance; the House of Rothschild, both in London and Paris; Ernest Cassel, Nathan Rothschild’s financial associate in creating the armament’s giant Vickers; Baron Leon Lambert, his son-in-law, who ran his own family bank; Emile Francqui had been King Leopold’s man in the Congo. He was associated with Herbert Hoover in China and South Africa, controller of two of the most important banks in Belgium and President of the executive committee of the CSNA. All these men were all linked by blood or money. But that was only the tip of the financial iceberg.

Almost every important Belgian banking houses was represented in the CNSA. Josse Allard, formerly a director of the Belgian mint, headed the Banque Allard et Cie, which in turn was affiliated to the Banque Josse Allard in Brussels and an associate of the Dreschner Bank in Germany. [7] But the links crossed the Atlantic too. Franz Philippson, head of the Banque Philippson which was formed to finance loans for the independent state of Congo in 1888, joined with prominent American-German bankers Kuhn, Loeb and Co. in New York and their Hamburg banking colleagues, the Warburgs, to form a Portfolio company to specialise in selling US securities in Europe. Because these banks were integral to the structure of the commercial life of Belgium and aided the Germans by guaranteeing payments to the occupying force, their foreign investments were not subject to interference. It proved a convenient understanding.

The Banque National de Belge, the National Bank of Belgium, (NBB) its central bank, had formerly printed all of the bank notes for the nation but as punishment for transferring its gold reserves and ‘a large number of State bonds’ to the Bank of England in August 1914 [8] the Germans chose to operate through Francqui’s Societe Generale, thus giving it even more international kudos. The Banque National’s’s auditors had included Baron Leon Lambert of Rothschilds and intriguingly, Edward Bunge, the Antwerp banker and grain importer.

Edward Bunge’s family connections reached into Argentina, where his brother Ernest and his brother-in-law, George Born, emigrated from Antwerp and by 1909 their grain exporting company, Bunge and Born owned Argentina’s largest and most profitable flour mills, grain silos and harbour installations. They were the exporting arm in the joint business. Edward owned Bunge and Co. as the independent European outlet for the massive grain importing business and the operating hub for these companies was Antwerp. [9] Like many other rich entrepreneurs, Bunge and Co. had been involved in King Leopold’s notorious exploitation in the Congo and administered the affairs of the company which was given rights over the 12,000 square miles of the Mongalla district by the Belgian monarch. [10] Trusted by the Belgian royal family, Edward Bunge was in a perfect position to both assist Hoover in purchasing grain and benefit spectacularly from the venture.

While Hoover and the Commission later produced a chart showing membership of the CNSA, the banking connections were hidden in a forest of names. When highlighted below, it reveals the extent of the domination of the CNSA by Belgian banks and business.

Comte National de Secours et d’Alimentation (CNSA)

President
Ernest Solvay
Chairman, Solvay S.A.

Vice-Presidents

Jean Jadot                                     L. Van Der Rest
Vice-Governor, Societe Generale     Vice-Governor, National Bank 

Members

Josse Allard                             Dannie Heineman                 F. Masson

Banque Josse Allard              Director, CNSA Brussels
Director, Belgian Mint           Director, SOFINA

Louis Bertrand                         J. de Hemptinne                Comte de Merode
Belgian Workers Party                                                    Aristocrat

F. Van Bree                        E. De Wouters                       C. Heynderbickx
Societe Generale            Managing Director
Congo Financier             Banque Belgique d’Etranger

Baron Evence Coppee            Baron d’Huart                       C.L. Peten
Mining/Metallurgy              Representative                  Advocate

E. Van Elewyck                      F.M. Philippson                       W. Hulse
National Bank                    Banque Philippson               SOFINA

E. Francqui                           Baron Janssen                       F. Portman
Societe Generale
Banque a Outremer

L. Frank                                 E.M. Janssen                          L. Solvay
Solvay S.A .                                                                      Solvay S.A.

Baron Lambert                       Max Hallet                             E. Hanssens
Banque Lambert                    Lawyer                            Constitutional 
International Financier                                                  Lawyer

A. Harmignie                       Michel Levie                            G. De Laveleye
Catholic Party           ex-Minister of Finance               Business Lawyer

Alfred Orban                        P. van Hoegaerden                  Ed Bunge

Banque Belgique                National Bank                 Banque Bunge & Cie   d’Etranger

Executive Committee

President
Emile Francqui
Chairman, Societe Generale; Banque a Outremer

Vice Presidents

Emmanuel Janssen          Chevalier E De Wouters                       M.F. Van Bree
Solvay S.A.                     Banque Belgique d’Etranger            Societe Generale

Look carefully then, at the names of those who served on the Comite National, headed by its President Ernest Solvay, the wealthiest industrialist in Europe. Solvay’s firms were spread across the world and major plants and factories could be found in Germany, Austria, France, Belgium and America. The Executive committee, the select group which was charged with day to day decision-making was chaired by Emile Francqui, director of the Societe Generale and the single most powerful banker in Belgium. By the end of the war he would become a man whom even wealthy bankers feared. Francqui was supported by men who held high office in the Societe Generale or Solvay’s companies, including Chevalier de Wouters d’Oplinter, the same man who had stood side by side with Herbert Hoover in the infamous London court case of 1905. [11]

They were ably assisted in full committee by Baron Leon Lambert, head of Banque Lambert, the second biggest private bank in Belgium. Both Lambert and Francqui had previously enjoyed direct involvement with the rabid Belgian exploitation of the Congo despite the atrocities that happened there. [12] Francqui had negotiated loans with the US financier Pierpont Morgan on behalf of King Leopold II and on return to Belgium had invested his fortune in banking. [13] As we have shown in our blog of 26 August, Dannie Heineman, an engineer of German descent, though born in America was head of the international SOFINA Group and his associate, William Hulse, also of SOFINA were pro-German. SOFINA was founded in 1898 as a German company which held vital tram and electricity concessions in Spain, Argentina, Italy, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, France and Turkey. Heineman and Hulse were consequently very influential with the German governors in Brussels, and Heineman’s voice also carried weight in Berlin. He was their man and Hoover used him as such.

Thus, the Comite National was headed by the most important and influential industrialists and bankers in Belgium whose assets crossed national boundaries. But the interconnections ran much deeper. They had holdings in minerals and ores essential for the war, chemicals that offered new ways of spreading death and foodstuffs located in neutral countries that could provide bread to the warring factions. They could make loans, underwrite borrowings and discount bills of exchange. Everything they did made a profit. This was surely one of the oddest collections of humanitarians in history. When the full committee met together there was also a coterie of the King Albert’s representatives, some high-placed lawyers and genuine politicians representing the complete spectrum of Belgian society, the Workers, the Catholics and the Conservatives, whose aim was to serve a needy people. But they were in a minority, kept away from the power-base executive which made the real decisions and reaped the eventual rewards.

Like the barons of medieval England, the Comite National dictated its own charter on 31 October 1914 and had it rubber-stamped by all of the delegates from across Belgium who depended on it. They announced that two new organisations had been created, one the Commission for Relief in Belgium, by this time, Hoover’s CRB, and a second, the Provincial Committees whose work would be supervised by the delegates appointed by the Comite National. They declared that the Comite National would ‘maintain intimate co-operation’ with the CRB through its offices in Brussels. However the chief feature of this declaration of virtual self-government was the agreement that ‘the Comite National would centralise the accounts, fix the price of merchandise and look after the payment of supplies sold to the provincial committees.’ [14] Through this system, Provincial Committees paid the CNSA for the foodstuffs it received, and resold to consumers at fixed prices so that they could earn a ‘ small profit’. They were also obliged to pay an insurance premium to cover any damage or misfortune that might befall their supplies. [15]

Furthermore, each provincial committee had to maintain a running account with the Societe Generale with sufficient funds to cover at least one month’s shipments of food. This was not charitable humanitarianism; it was monopolistic control. The Comite National fixed the price of the food and clothing, whether donated or bought by Allied funds. Putting aside food allocated for the destitute, everything was sold for cash at a profit with payment guaranteed and the Societe Generale as the central banker. Francqui and his banking associates literally set up a system where they could dictate ever rising prices, allocate the scarce resources, make ever increasing profit. Even the cash flows ran through his all-powerful bank. And they called it benevolence. What impertinence!

Certainly Hoover had the backing of the financial power-houses of New York and London, but the Belgian banks boasted international muscle that challenged even his authority from time to time. The reader might wonder why, with so much wealth, the Belgian banks, did not risk their assets to relieve there fellow-countrymen? What? They were banks, for goodness sake; banks don’t operate charities, do they? Yet they would like you to believe that they played a major role in this relief scheme. That’s what their records claim.

[1] George H. Nash, The Life of Herbert Hoover, The Humanitarian, 1914-1917, pp. 49-52.
[2] Ibid., p. 57.
[3] Manfred Pohl and Sabine Freitag, Handbook on the History of European Banks, p.84.
[4] King Edward VII had a very close relationship with Sir Edward Cassell, whom he trusted and valued. Interestingly, Cassell was the last visitor whom Edward saw before his death in 1910.
[5] R. Brian et J.L. Moreau, Inventaire Des Archives de la Banque d’Outremer S.A., 1899-1957, pp. VII- VII, http://www.avae-vvba.be/PDF/Banque_%20d_Outremer.pdf
[6] Ibid.
[7] Marie Therese Bitsch, La Belgique Entre La France et d’Allemande, 1905-1914, p. 134.
[8] The Times 22 Feb. 1915.
[9] Gabriel Tortella and Gloria Quirega, Entrepreneurship and Growth: An International Historical Perspective, pp. 78-81
[10] E.D. Morel, Affairs of West Africa, p. 331.
[11] The Times, 2 March 1905, p. 9.
[12] Neal Ascherson, The King Incorporated, Leopold and the Congo, p.199.
[13] Charles D’Ydewalle, Albert King of the Belgians, p. 147.
[14] Tracy Barrett Kittredge,The history of the Commission for Relief in Belgium – Primary Source Edition,  p. 77.
[15] Charles de Lannoy, L’Alimentation de la Belgique par le comite national (published 1922) p. 32. https://archive.org/details/lalimentationdel00lann

The Commission For Relief In Belgium 6: Creating The Structure

One of the main problems with which Hoover and his Commission for Relief in Belgium (CRB) had to contend was the proliferation of relief funds and war charities. Collections for Armenia, for the American Red Cross, for Jews suffering through the war, for prisoners of war, for the French wounded were among the many that sprung up like mushrooms in the United States. [1] Hoover had no time for other groups which were competing for charitable donations, and his major concern was the Rockefeller Foundation which was independently organising food and supplies for Belgium. To make matters worse,  a well respected New York philanthropist, Robert de Forest, formed yet another  independent Belgian Relief Committee in America just days before the CRB was established. Keeping control of such organisations in the United States was much more problematic than holding a monopoly in Europe.

Hoover was concerned that the Rockefeller Foundation intended to establish an independent relief channel into Belgium which would supplant his own, [2] an intolerable situation given that it would undermine the Secret Elite plan to supply Germany. There was a financial consideration too. Had the Rockefeller Foundation won the day, they would have operated through Rockefeller banks rather than the Morgan Guaranty Trust Bank through which future funds were to be channelled to Hoover. A  counterattack was launched through the same channels Hoover had used to grab control of the American Citizens’ Committee in London. He lied and misrepresented his status in precisely the same manner, and called on his powerful political connections to enable him to have his way. Ambassador Page dutifully dispatched a blunt cable to the Rockefeller Foundation which, in all probability, was ghost-written by Hoover himself. [3] The telegram insisted that the CRB was the ‘only organisation’ recognised by both belligerents in the war, and the only one capable of co-ordinating support from all parts of the world. Hoover was absolutely insistent that shipping be organised by the CRB and wanted guarantees that the Rockefeller Foundation would restrict itself to the purchase and collection of food. [4] He would deal with the funds or, rather, Secret Elite associate J P Morgan Jnr would through his Guaranty Trust Bank of New York.

As part of his orchestrated move against the Rockefeller Foundation, Hoover had asked his friend and long term business associate, Lindon Bates, to open a branch office in New York to handle all shipping and transportation in the United States. While Hoover sought to give the CRB the appearance of inclusion by offering both the Rockefeller Foundation and de Forest representation on his Commission, he had no intention of sharing control with them. He informed Bates in a private letter that he did not ‘propose to be dictated to by any little hole in the corner organisation in New York’ [5] Hoover sent the Rockefeller Foundation a cable declaring that he had received a loan from the Belgian bankers which was absolutely conditional on his complete control of shipping and transportation. [6] Lie after lie. Dishonesty and deceit. Does this read like a humanitarian venture?

Hoover’s close ties to the Anglo-American establishment had given him access to the sympathetic American Ambassadors, Walter Page in London and Brand Whitlock in Brussels. They stirred every issue to the advantage of the CRB, portraying a sense of immediate urgency either to the US government or the press. In October Whitlock sent an alarming message to President Wilson advising that ‘in two weeks the civil population of Belgium will face starvation’. He sought urgent support ‘to provide foods for the hungry ones in the dark days of the terrible winter that is coming on.’ [7] It all made good copy and Hoover’s backers won the day.

To permit the smooth running of the CRB, agreements were co-ordinated through diplomatic channels that operated well above the scope and level of access to which any ordinary citizen was normally accustomed. At Hoover’s request, Ambassador Page asked the British Foreign Office to designate a sufficiently important link with the Commission to obviate the red tape which constantly slowed down effective decision making. His personal friend, Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey, duly appointed Lord Eustace Percy. A member of the British Establishment and the Secret Elite’s Grillion’s Club, [8] Percy fully co-operated with Hoover and enabled CRB members to go directly to senior government officials rather than wait for diplomatic permission. [9]

The British Foreign Office liaised with the Belgians to rubber-stamp agreements between German military authorities and the neutral representatives, namely the American and Spanish Ambassadors in Belgium. The Spanish Ambassador, the formidable Marquis de Villalobar, an old-school aristocrat, ‘mad and touchy’, according to Brand Whitlock, [10] was considered ‘ornamental’ by Hoover [11] but that was both unfair and typical of Hoover’s dismissive nature. The Spanish Ambassador proved to be exceptionally hard working on a day to day basis, and had no fear whatsoever of Prussian arrogance. That, he could meet with his own. [12] He threw himself into the work believing it to be a grand humanitarian effort and we have found no evidence to connect him to the Secret Elite.

The conditions under which the relief for Belgian civilians were permitted to operate were set in October 1914 and explained in a letter to Ambassador Page from the Foreign Office:

‘Sir Edward Grey has written to Baron Lambert [a leading Belgian banker in the Comite National and related by marriage to the Rothschilds] telling him that we are not stopping any food supplies going to Rotterdam – from neutral countries in neutral ships – which we are satisfied are not for the use of the German Government or Army, and we shall not therefore interfere with the food supplies for the civil population of Belgium unless we have reason to suppose that the assurance given by Marshal von der Goltz to the American and Spanish Ministers is not being carried out.’ [13]

The Foreign Office, the Secret Elite’s strongest arm in government, thus made it plain that Hoover’s organisation had their blessing. But Grey’s letter was deliberately vague. As far as the British public were concerned, the Commission for Relief in Belgium was only permitted to operate under a series of strict and binding guarantees. The Germans guaranteed that they would not requisition supplies destined for the civil population. [14]  Neutral governments, in this case America, Spain and Holland, agreed to monitor the relief agency, and the Belgian government in exile was required to approve the whole process. Neutral ships would  carry the produce to a neutral port where the Comite Central (later the Comite National) would deal with its distribution. Ambassadors and Heads of Legations in Washington, Madrid, London, Berlin and Brussels were directly involved in a flurry of permits and promises.

A group of American students drawn from Oxford University, Rhodes scholars, were employed as neutral observers. They were supposed to check the imported produce, where it went and how it was disbursed so that the CRB could prove that the international conditions were met. In truth, if all twenty-five of them concentrated on a single ship-load, there was no certainty that they had the necessary skills to understand what was happening.

At no stage was the task of the Commission for Relief in Belgium (CRB) easy or straightforward. Despite all of the advantages of his connections both with the Secret Elite and the American and Belgian diplomatic corps, Hoover had to fight hard to establish his absolute control.  He had then to ensure that it, and it alone, had a monopoly of foodstuffs supplied through Rotterdam to Belgium, and, most importantly of all, to Germany. That was the unspoken part of this complicated equation. You will find no reference in the official histories of supplies being directed to Germany but they certainly were.  Irrefutable proof from German sources will be presented in future blogs.

By the end of the first six months of the war, the structure was more of less in place. The CRB’s headquarters in London was controlled absolutely by Hoover at no. 3 London Wall Buildings in the heart of the financial district. What grace of fortune kissed his venture and granted him rent-free premises two doors away from his own company offices in the very same prestigious London Wall Buildings? [15] Even more fortuitously, the firm which signed off the final accounts covering October 1914 to September 1920, Deloitte, Plender, Griffiths & Co., were registered at 5 London Wall Buildings. Amazing. A Century later these premises remain part of the JP Morgan empire in London. [16]

In many ways the organisation that Hoover led was utterly unique. The CRB was unincorporated, had no legal status in commercial law, was unanswerable to any shareholders, had no prospectus or annual general meetings, no business plan or set targets, yet it signed up to international agreements, engaged in worldwide transactions and spent huge sums of money for which successful international banks which willingly co-operated. It ran its own fleet of ships with its own flag.  It made claim to be American but that, as we shall demonstrate, was also a flag of convenience. What Hoover constructed was described as ‘a piratical state organised for benevolence’ [17]

More appropriately we would describe it as a piratical state organised for and by unaccountable men who masked the immense benefits they reaped for themselves behind the good works of others. They also masked their true objective – a war of sufficient length to crush Germany’s economic prowess and remove her as a threat to Anglo-Saxon pre-eminence across the globe.

All that was required was the money to pay for it.

[1] There are many pertinent examples. A number can be found in the New York Times throughout July 1916, from which those mentioned in the text are drawn.
[2] George Nash, The Life of Herbert Hoover, The Humanitarian, 1914-1917 p. 52.
[3] Ibid., p. 49.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Hoover to Bates, 13 November 1914, Nash, The Life of Herbert Hoover, p. 54.
[6] Nash, The Life of Herbert Hoover, p. 55.
[7] Whitlock to Bryan, 16/10/14, Gay and Fisher. Doc. 8, cited in the American Journal of International Law, p. 314.
[8] Carroll Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment, p. 31.
[9] Tracey Barrett Kittredge, The History of the Commission for Relief in Belgium – Primary Source Edition, p. 56.
[10] Brand Whitlock, Letters and Journals 10 December 1914 http://www.ourstory.info/library/2-ww1/Whitlock/bw05.html
[11] Nash, The Life of Herbert Hoover, p. 80.
[12] A perusal of Brand Whitlock’s Letters and Journals shows just how involved and useful the Marquis was on a daily basis in Brussels. http://www.ourstory.info/library/2-ww1/Whitlock/bw05.html
[13] George I Gay and HH Fisher, Public Relations for the Commission  for Relief in Belgium, p.13  Letter from Sir Arthur Nicolson, 20 October 1914 to Ambassador Page. http://net.lib.byu.edu/estu/wwi/comment/CRB/CRB1-TC.htm
[14] Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 4 March, 1915, p. 1.
[15] Nash, The Life of Herbert Hoover, p. 34.
[16] The Commission for Relief in Belgium, Balance Sheet and Accounts, http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo1.ark:/13960/t04x5vs3b;view=1up;seq=7
[17] Gay and Fisher, Public Relations of the Commission for Relief in Belgium, p. 5. http://net.lib.byu.edu/estu/wwi/comment/CRB/CRB1-TC.htm

The Commission For Relief In Belgium 5: The Hoover Acquisition?

By September 1914 there was a proliferation of funding groups and organisations in Britain and America to support Belgium and Belgian refugees, and a considerable amount of money had been raised. Channelling food and basic essentials through war zones required the agreement of both neutral and belligerent governments; no easy task. The American Legation in Brussels willingly represented British subjects and British interests in occupied Belgium and maintained a proper but friendly relationship with the German civil administration. It was the obvious conduit for negotiations on food imports.

The first U.S. diplomat involved was Hugh Gibson, Secretary to the American legation in Belgium.  He arrived in London carrying messages of support for the Belgian Comite Central to Walter Page, the American Ambassador to Britain. By 6 October the diplomatic wheels were beginning to turn. Although the British government agreed that supplies of foodstuffs might be sent to Brussels through the good auspices of the American legation, approval for such an immense responsibility had not been granted by Washington. Indeed the US Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan, had yet to have it confirmed from Berlin that the German authorities would give their approval. [1] It was all very well for the German and Belgian authorities to agree a local understanding, but its delivery demanded inter-government approval at the highest level. The proposal hung in the balance, tempting providence. While it would undoubtedly bring rich pickings, that was never the prime reason for Belgian Relief. Nor was it why the British government agreed to the deal. Every decision approved by the Secret Elite had a very clear objective; to prolong the war and crush Germany.

Take care not to fall into the habit of believing all that is written in official histories. They generally slip into convenient plausibility. In this instance, the notion that Herbert Hoover just happened to be available to give his time and effort for the good of the Belgian people, is fantasy. Hoover had never visited Belgium, but he had a long history connecting him to Belgian banks and Belgian investors in the Far East. In raising the necessary capital to facilitate the fraudulent take-over of the Kaiping mines in 1901, Hoover had turned to Belgian bankers and persuaded them to invest heavily. When he returned to China to finalise the fraud it was in the company of the Belgian aristocrat, Chevalier de Wouters. [2] Though they were both criticised for acting in bad faith by Mr Justice Joyce at the High Court of Justice in 1905, [3] they continued to thrive in malpractice and manipulation. Hoover had also been associated with Emile Francqui, one of the richest men in Belgium, in the corrupt Chinese venture and was intrinsically connected by him to Belgian banks and investments. Hoover’s interest in Belgium was not chance.

What is the truth behind Herbert Hoover’s take-over of Belgian Relief? According to Tracy Kittredge’s history (which Hoover later ordered destroyed) Millard Shaler, an American engineer residing in Brussels, traveled to London and approached Hoover on 26 September requesting his help. [4] However, according to Shaler’s own account in his book ‘Development of the Relief Movement’, it was a British Committee interested in the Belgian refugees which first approached Hoover for his assistance. [5] Now who could that have been? Who was involved with the ‘British Committee’ which approached Herbert Hoover? Shaler’s revelation is exceedingly important because it links Hoover and his consequent take-over of Belgian Relief with an unidentified interest group in Britain; a group whose standing empowered Herbert Hoover to move forward with their support and blessing.

Why Hoover? He was the perfect fit. Unscrupulous, greedy, a ruthless exploiter of men and opportunities, he was utterly devoid of humanitarian sympathies. Knowing as he did, that the scam would prolong the war and all of the misery that followed, Hoover had the complete confidence of the Secret Elite. He was supposed to be neutral but his whole history was that of a rampant anglophile who had built his success inside the British Empire and been richly rewarded. Hoover had lived so long in London ‘that he had fairly intimate relations with many men close to the British Government.’ [6] He knew the top men in Britain, and he knew how to railroad an organisation and turn it into his own. His life’s work had been built on such bully-boy tactics, whether the victims were farmers in the mid-west of the United States, miners in Australia, Chinese officials in Kaiping, Chinese ‘coolies’ sold into slavery in the gold mines of South Africa, [7] or fellow Americans in London who had already organised relief for their stranded compatriots. [8] He used the same lies, the same half-truths, the same access to media exposure and the same patronage to get his way. The generally accepted story of how he achieved this ‘acquisition’, and that is the most accurate term to describe his take-over of Belgian Relief, has been drawn from official documents as recorded by his great friends Hugh Gibson, Millard Shaler and Edgar Rickard, former editor of the Mining Engineer, men whose later success was bound to Hoover’s coat tails.

Chosen for this task by the London elites who deliberately  caused the war, he visited Ambassador Page on 10 October to seek diplomatic support for providing food for Belgium. [9] Please remember that virtually all of the ‘evidence’ comes from Hoover, his close associates, and approved members of the Commission for the Relief of Belgium when he was unquestionably in charge of it. Two years later, when the Americans were attempting to rewrite the record and claim precedence over the original Belgian Comite National, Edgar Rickard stated that Hoover had conferred with Ambassador Page in London as early as 4 October. Not so. Time and again, records relating to Herbert Hoover were altered or ‘lost’, always to the benefit of the American ‘humanitarian’.

Even Hoover’s official biographer, George Nash, concluded that any claim that Hoover was involved prior to 6 October is at best un-corroborated. [10] Everyone agreed that Hoover was responsible for driving forward the Belgian Relief plans, whatever that actually meant, in October 1914. Not so. No one man could ever have managed such a gargantuan task. The Secret Elite ensured that he controlled their venture, its organisation and its finance, but he operated through their trans-Atlantic tentacles, their banks, their shipping, their businesses. In 1916, Ambassador Page put in writing to Hoover that the Belgian Relief effort came ‘around you and at your suggestion’. [11] Did he believe that, or did he just want to ensure that should the truth ever be revealed  the blame could not be attached to himself?  Whatever, it was not Hoover’s suggestion.

An odd alliance developed between Hoover and Hugh Gibson, his man in the Brussels Legation, (technically the Secretary to the Legation), and Walter Page, the Ambassador in London. Basically, the diplomats colluded with Hoover in altering documents, writing and then rewriting their own history and using adulterated and fabricated reports to establish their accounts as the truth and justify their claims. A prime example of this tactic can be found in Hoover’s manipulation of the American Press to sway opinion so that a sense of burning urgency leant pubic support to government decisions in Washington that would otherwise have been widely criticised. When the US State Department stalled over their involvement in Belgian Relief in October 1914, Hoover turned to his media allies. He was an ‘adroit manipulator of the levers of publicity’ [12] and had cultivated a number of friends in the London press corps.  These  included a fellow alumnus of Stanford University, the ‘strategically placed’ Ben S Allen of Associated Press and Philip Patchin of the Tribune.

The initial announcement of an American organisation for relief in Belgium appeared in a Press Association dispatch on 15 October 1914. In an interview, Hoover outlined the plan. Firstly he claimed that it was absolutely necessary that all funds collected for Belgian relief outside Britain should be centralised in his committee. Allegedly he wanted to avoid the problem of overlapping waste and intended to establish a single commission to absorb all the workers and committees already set up in London and Belgium. [13] In truth, this was the Secret Elite ensuring their absolute control. He also suggested that the best way to aid Belgian refugees would be to repatriate them, a task which could only be undertaken by an American organisation in agreement with all the appropriate governments. [14] This strange and ridiculous suggestion was ignored by the Allies. Perhaps his recent success with the ‘repatriation’ of Americans stranded in Europe had clouded his judgement. It was nonsense, but demonstrated Hoover’s incapacity to grasp the reality of the situation. Repatriation in war time would have been an act of gross inhumanity by the great ‘humanitarian’.

From that early point Hoover’s press releases were relentless. He wrote to State Governors with appeals to State pride in being the ‘first’ to fund a ‘Kansas’ ship or a ‘Chicago’ cargo. He organised personal appeals from King Albert of Belgium. [15] He learned to dramatise events so that every press release screamed of an immediate crisis. He made bold and deliberately vague claims that ‘the American commission for relief in Belgium … was the only channel through which food can be introduced into Belgium, and by its association with a committee in Belgium, has the only effective agency for the distribution of food within that country.’ So much for the leading role played by the Comite National in Brussels. His press release also claimed that 80 per cent of the country was unemployed and the relief agencies needed $2,500,000 per month or the consequences would be dire. Laughably, he assured America that ‘every dollar represents actual food’ [16] Headlines in major newspapers across the allied countries screamed ‘America must feed Belgium this winter. There never was a famine emergency so great.’ [17] There was no famine. There was need, but his lies were deliberately set to alarm. They were intended to create the impression of crisis which would force governments and individuals to back the so-called Herbert Hoover initiative.

So for whom was Hoover actually importing the huge shipments of food? We will answer that pressing question in good time.

[1] Bryan to Gerard, 7 October 1914, The American Journal of International Law, p. 314.
[2] Walter W Liggett, The Rise of Herbert Hoover, pp. 87-8.
[3] The Times, 19 January 1905, p. 3.
[4] Tracy Barrett Kittredge, The History of the Commission for Relief in Belgium, 1914-1917 – Primary Source Edition, p. 37.
[5] George H. Nash, The Life of Herbert Hoover, The Humanitarian, 1914-1917, p.19.
[6] Ligget, The Rise of Herbert Hoover, p. 223.
[7] John Hamill, The Strange Case of Mr Hoover Under Two Flags, pp. 150-60.
[8] Nash, The Life of Herbert Hoover: The Engineer, 1874-1914, pp. 5-11.
[9] Kittredge, The History of the Commission, p. 37.
[10] George H. Nash, The Life of Herbert Hoover: The Engineer, pp. 390-1.
[11] George I Gay and H H  Fisher, Public Relations for the Commission for Relief in Belgium,   Page’s letter to Hoover, 25 February 1916.   Photostat copy opposite page 18. http://net.lib.byu.edu/estu/wwi/comment/CRB/CRB1-TC.htm
[12] Nash, The Life of Herbert Hoover: The Engineer, p. 21.
[13] New York Herald, 15 October 1914.
[14] Kittredge, The History of the Commission, p. 40.
[15] New York Times, 1 November 1914.
[16] Ibid.
[17] The Times, 13 Oct 1914.

The Commission For Relief In Belgium 4: A Very Belgian Solution

Shortly after the start of the war and the consequent German invasion of Belgium, hundreds of thousands of refugees trudged westwards to France, across the channel to England and north east to Holland, leaving behind a shocked and disoriented population. Estimates of the number of refugees vary widely from the CRB’s conservative guess of approximately 600,000 [1] to around 1.5 million. [2] The much lower number suited the CRB’s more grandiose claims that it had to feed around 9.5 million ‘otherwise inevitably starving people’ who remained behind. [3] Despite the destruction caused by the invaders, there was at first no shortage of food supplies. [4] However, some areas of the country were particularly badly affected by the German advance, and a number of different local committees set up organisations to provide food, clothing and even accommodation for those in distress. In a very short time, these groups had been amalgamated into an enormous supply chain which none of the belligerents ‘dared or cared’ to stop. [5]

Had the general public in allied countries known how much of the food supplied for ‘starving Belgians’ was destined for Germany, there would have been outrage. Had they realised that these foodstuffs, which eventually totalled over a hundred thousand tons a month, purchased by money which the tax-payer in Britain and France would have to repay, actually sustained the enemy and prolonged the war, governments would have fallen. Had the allied troops known there would have been mutiny throughout the ranks.

A number of important assumptions still exist which have helped conceal the clever sleight of hand behind the organised system that supplied food to both the civilians in Belgium  and the German army on the Western Front. The first and most concerning is the extent to which the illusion of starvation or impending starvation in Belgium was created. Belgium was highly industrialised but at least 60 per cent of the country comprised rich agricultural land which was intensively cultivated. During the war years the general conditions of farming were sound, though modest. [6] When war broke out Belgium found herself in a very favourable position with regard to food stocks. The new cereal crop had been exceptionally good and, despite the presence of an invading army, there was at first no shortage of food and prices hardly rose. [7]

So from where did the myth of a starving nation emerge? Haunting images exist of starving Boer children in South Africa, of starving German families and children in 1919, of the atrocities visited on the starving holocaust victims in 1945, of pitiful Biafran innocents in the 1960s, but not from Belgium in 1914. The immaculately staged images, published by the Hoover Institute, of Belgian children  show masses [8] of adequately clothed youngsters with suppliant begging-bowls, presumably hungry. There is, however, a world of difference between hunger and starvation. There was need, no-one would deny that. But there was no evidence of a starving nation. There are no memorials to victims of starvation in Belgium during the First World War, as there are say, in Ireland to the millions who died in the great famine,  so why has  myth been accepted as fact?

A second assumption spread by journalists and historians who have unquestioningly accepted the claims made by Herbert Hoover and his associates, was that the supply of emergency foodstuffs was undertaken by a single organisation called the Commission for the Relief of Belgium, or as many preferred, the American Relief Committee. It was not. Two organisations were in operation, one from New York and London, the other from Brussels, but they rarely acted as, nor considered themselves to be one body. The third assumption is that these organisations were entirely charitable; indeed ‘benevolence’ was their favoured term. [9] Again, this is not true. Much of the food was sold and the profits allegedly flowed back to the relief fund to purchase more. What this amounted to, we will never know. But this is the essential problem with Belgian relief in all of its guises; it has been successfully covered-up and rebranded, and what is recorded lends itself to myth.

The groups which emerged by the end of 1914 to provide food to Belgium (and later Northern France) gathered immense power and their prestige grew through a combination of bankers, financiers, racketeers, lawyers and politicians. They were unaccountable to any democratic chamber and wrote their own history. Though not all were motivated by self interest and greed, the system that operated favoured the powerful banks. Indeed, with both the King and the Belgian government in exile, by November 1914 the Brussels Committee was regarded by many Belgians as the provisional government. [10]

Consider the initial response to a serious situation. The provision of adequate food for citizens caught up directly in the consequences of the German advance through Belgium towards Paris had caused an immediate problem. Many villages were totally destroyed and towns like Louvain, Dinant and Aerschot razed to the ground as the might of the German army pushed its way westward. Around twenty per cent of the population may have fled the country and the capital, Brussels, sheltered around 200,000 refugees. [11] Factories closed and civil servants and local government employees went unpaid. A ‘private charitable organisation’ was formed in Brussels to counter the growing crisis by raising money to buy food and distribute it to the needy, unemployed or destitute in and the city.

It described itself as a triumph of good organisation and careful preparation which coordinated the disbursement through local volunteer relief agencies, distribution centres and uniform rationing. But food was not supplied free of charge. Only the ‘verifiably poor’ received free rations and those who could, had to pay. [12] In Brussels the organising group called itself the Comite Central and its most unusual feature was that it comprised virtually every senior banker in the land. Banks rarely involved themselves directly in charitable works unless, of course, there was an underlying benefit.

As the history of the Rothschilds has proved, certain banks are always first to know what is about to happen [13] In 1912, two years before the cataclysm of world war, a series of events took place which anticipated what was to come to pass; events which made a mockery of Belgian ‘neutrality’. King Albert convened a secret meeting of the Belgian parliament and disclosed that he had evidence that Belgium was in dire and imminent danger. Two crucial moves followed. Firstly the strength of the Belgian army was raised by 340,000 men, an enormous expansion given the ‘neutral’ status of a small nation. [14] As explained in our book,  long before the war Belgium had  worked under secret military agreements and alliances with Britain and France.

Secondly, the National Bank of Belgium began preparations to cope with the financial emergency that war would bring. In utmost secrecy, they printed 5-Franc notes to replace silver coins and planned the transfer of their reserves of gold and note-making plates to vaults in the Bank of England in London. [15] Not only had the Belgian banks prepared for a war that no-one allegedly knew was coming, they had chosen sides. So much for neutral Belgium.

While this expose focuses on the lesser known and often denied malpractices from which key players made fortunes, there can be no doubt that thousands of volunteers and civic administrators worked ceaselessly to feed and safeguard the ordinary citizen, man soup-kitchens, issue daily rations, provide milk and other suitable food for mothers and babies and shelter the destitute. The infant mortality rate in Belgium fell from 151 per 1,000 live births in 1914 to 119 by 1918 [16] which would surely have been impossible in a nation wracked by starvation. In addition to food, a central warehouse was opened in Brussels in September 1914 to collect, restore, distribute and sell second-hand clothes. [17] This is a history of immense kindness on the part of many, and despicable exploitation by the few.

The task of sourcing foodstuffs from both inside Belgium and from neutral countries was initiated by the Comite Central in Brussels in September 1914. Dannie Heineman, an American-born electrical engineer who had spent most of his life in Germany, apparently suggested to the Comite Central that diplomatic channels might be opened with American and Spanish approval to purchase food abroad. Subsequently, the Comite authorised him to contact the German authorities. The official CRB histories describe Heineman as an American businessman, resident in Brussels, [18] but this is entirely misleading.  He was taken to Germany by his widowed mother when he was eight years old and was educated there, graduating from the Technical College of Hanover in 1895. His first post was in Berlin with a company directly associated with the American giant General Electric. In 1905, he headed a small three-man Belgian-German company which specialised in electric power and transport. Established by Belgian bankers, the Societe Financiere de Transports et d’Enterprises Industrielles (SOFINA) became a powerful player in the nascent energy industry. It grew into an international company employing 40,000 workers and owned tramway and electrical power systems throughout the world. [19] How could Heineman possibly have raised the finance to achieve such success? Who was backing him?

Dannie Heineman, the moving spirit, [20] played a particularly important, though often underrated role in what followed because he was well known and trusted by the Germans. Not everyone approved of him. The Head of the American Legation at Brussels, Brand Whitlock, had reservations about Heinemann. He noted in his diary on 14 October 1914: ‘A call from Heineman towards noon. He has been discussing with his German friends the revictualing of the city and also the affairs of the banks. Heineman, invaluable, clever little Jew, eyes like a rat. Very strong with the Germans.’ [21] Quite apart from the despicable anti-Semitic pejoratives, consider the implications here. Dannie Heinemann was first and foremost a friend of the Germans.

Time and again over the following three years, the chief role in negotiations with the German Governor-General ‘ fell naturally’ to Heineman. [22] By October 1914 he had been elevated to vice-chairman of the CRB and director of the Brussels office. Why? It is our contention that this man who was closely linked to Germany was placed in a key operational role because it gave him ample scope to divert supplies to the occupying forces. Surely the British authorities were aware of this? It stood to reason that, no matter their assurances, the occupiers would abuse the proposed system. Were these not the same ‘heartless’ Prussians lambasted for almost a decade by the British press for their inhumanity? Why would the Germans have agreed to allow the importation of foodstuffs into their area of occupation unless there were substantial benefits to their own war effort? And where does Heineman and ‘the affairs of the banks’ fit into this jig-saw puzzle? The answer is, at the very core of all that the Secret Elite constructed around the facade of humanitarian relief.

Heineman discussed the proposals with the German civil administration which in turn approached the military authority to obtain the requisite permission to purchase food for Belgian citizens. Assurances that imported food would not be requisitioned by the German army were given to the Head of the American Legation, Brand Whitlock. Further promises were made that the Germans would not tax, seize or requisition any supplies imported by the Comite Central for the needs of the civilian population in Belgium. On the face of it, if the British government was prepared to allow the Americans to feed Belgian civilians, then the responsibility for doing so passed from the German occupiers. It was a win-win solution from their point of view. If Belgians were fed with imported food, it would make some of the food actually produced in Belgium available to the Germans to sustain their armies. From the start the German civil administration reserved the right to decide how and where flour and wheat were to be distributed. [23] The Comite would not have absolute control over distribution even though they pretended otherwise.

Dannie Heineman’s close confidante, Millard Shaler, a mining engineer whose background, like that of Emile Francqui, lay in Belgium’s cruel and ruthless exploitation of the Congo, was chosen to make representation to the British government. He duly made his way to London with a credit note for £20,000, and instructions from the Comite Central to buy foodstuffs on their behalf. Critically, he also carried the written assurance from the German Governor-General that they would not seize any of the food imported to feed the civil population. [24] Shaler was also instructed to meet a representative of the Banque Belge pour l’Etranger in London to organise, in co-operation with the Belgian Minister resident there, a sub-committee to raise funds and purchase food on their behalf in England. [25] The important point to recognise is that in these early days this was an all-Belgian affair, organised in conjunction with the Belgian government in exile in association with Belgian banks. Funding and purchasing was to be channelled through the largest Belgian private bank, the Societe Generale de Belgique, a vitally important cog in all that was to transpire. Its London affiliate, the Banque Belge pour l’Etranger was the British connection. In what the bank’s own history terms a ‘providential’ move, a direct link between the main Belgian bank’s headquarters in Brussels and the London branch had been established in 1913. Amazing. What lay behind this providence?

The early success of the Brussels committee attracted the attention of a number of mayors and community representatives in other cities and districts who appealed to them for help, and the Comite Central’s scope was widened to encompass most of occupied Belgium. Under the Presidency of Ernest Solvay, head of the international Solvay Chemical companies, and the patronage of the Spanish and American ‘Ambassadors’ [26] as well as the Dutch Minister at Le Harve, the Comite Central expanded into a more important and influential organisation called the Comite National de Secours et Alimentation. (CNSA)

It is no exaggeration to say that the Belgian people saw the CNSA as a symbol of opposition to German occupation. It had 125,000 agents operating in the cities and provinces, a visible sign of Belgian solidarity. [27] The ordinary people were doing their best to help others. They had no notion whatsoever that the CNSA was working in harmony with the German occupiers. Two vitally important factors should be made clear at this stage. Firstly, the CNSA was a Belgian affair. Secondly it’s controllers were mostly creatures of finance and banking.

So how did Belgian Relief, which originated with the Comite Central in Brussels, mutate in the minds of most of the world into The Commission for Relief in Belgium and, by default, American Relief?

Please note that from next week we will be posting two blogs each week on Wednesday and Friday.

[1] Tracy Barrett Kittredge, The History of the Commission for Relief in Belgium, 1914-1917.  Primary Source Edition, p. 7.
[2] Lipkes J. (2007) Rehearsals: The German Army in Belgium, August 1914, Leuven University Press suggests a figure of around one and a half million.
[3] Kittredge, The History of the Commission, p. 1.
[4] Rapport sur l’activite du Bureau Federal des Co-operatives Intercommunales de Revitaillement,in General Report on the functioning and operations of the Comite National de Secours et Alimentation – Quatrieme Parte, p. 267.
[5] Kittredge, The History of the Commission, p. 1.
[6] Louis Delvaux, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 247, Belgium in Transition (September 1946) p. 144.
[7] Rapport sur l’activite du Bureau Federal des Co-operatives Intercommunales de Revitaillement, in General Report on the functioning and operations of the Comite National de Secours et Alimentation – Quatrieme Parte, p. 267.
[8] http://www.hoover.archives.gov/exhibits/Hooverstory/gallery02/index.html
[9] Heures de Detress, l’oeuvre du comite national de secours et d’alimentation et de la Commission for Relief in Belgium, 1914-1915, p. v. http://uurl.kbr.be/1007553?bt=europeanaapi
[10] Michael Amara and Hubert Roland, Gouverner en Belgique Occupee, p. 39.
[11] Kittredge, The History of the Commission , p. 7.
[12] George Nash, The life of Herbert Hoover, The Humanitarian, p.18.
[13] Niall Ferguson, The House of Rothschild: The World’s Banker, 1849-1999, vol. II, p. xxvii.
[14] Francis Neilson, How Diplomats Make War, p.179.
[15] Banque Nationale de Belgique, The Centenary of the Great War – the National Bank in wartime. http://www.nbbmuseum.be/fr/2013/11/wartime.htm
[16] Rapport sur les Petites Abeilles, Auot 1914 – December 1918 p. 20. http://www.14-18.bruxelles.be/index.php/fr/vie-quotidienne/femmes-et-enfants/textes-femmes-et-enfants/book/94/Array
[17] Kittredge, The History of the Commission, p. 17.
[18] Ibid., p. 12.
[19] Physics Today (15) 3. 1962. Obituary for Dannie Heineman.
http://scitation.aip.org/docserver/fulltext/aip/magazine/physicstoday/15/3/1.3058089.pdf?expires=1438164099&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=99F881DF2AA9139F38DDD426F550985A
[20] Nash, The Life of Herbert Hoover, p. 18.
[21] Letters and Journal of Brand Whitlock, The Journal, Chapter II. http://www.ourstory.info/library/2-ww1/Whitlock/bw02.html
[22] Kittredge, The History of the Commission, p. 78.
[23] Ibid., p. 34.
[24] Nash, The Life of Herbert Hoover, p. 18.
[25] Kittredge, The History of the Commission, p. 35.
[26] While the Report (page 18) refers to them as Ambassadors, technically Brand Whitlock was Head of the American Legation. Many writers simply blur the issue and refer to Whitlock as Ambassador.
[27] Michael Amara and Hubert Roland, Gouverner en Belgique Occupee, p. 39.

The Commission For Relief In Belgium 1: Background And Context

Over the course of the next two months we will examine the organisation loosely termed Belgian Relief which was created in late 1914, supposedly to save the ‘starving’ Belgian population left destitute after the German invasion in August. What we have uncovered is shocking evidence of Secret Elite collusion, both from London and America, to use Belgium as a means of supplying food to Germany and her armies so that they could continue fighting a bitter war of attrition on the continent of Europe. In a series of earlier blogs [1] we demonstrated how these men deliberately prolonged the war by a sham naval blockade which allowed Germany to maintain imports of vital food and war materiel. The Secret Elite sought the utter destruction of Germany and the German economy which threatened British predominance. This could not be achieved by a quick military victory, and it would have to be a long, long war. Armies march on their stomachs and good food supply lines have always been an essential factor in military success. Britain was able to sustain a long war by importing plentiful supplies from across her vast empire and from both North and South America. Germany, on the other hand, was surrounded by the proverbial ‘ring of steel’ and had no comparable sources. The stunning paradox is that Britain, in accord with her allies in ‘neutral’ America, knowingly supplied Germany with the means to go on fighting.

Warning: Any narrative about the Commission for  Relief in Belgium based on official documents, such as journals or diaries written by members of the Commission or their friends, must be treated as suspect. [2] In classic Secret Elite mode, the central characters involved in one of the world’s greatest swindles wrote their own version of history and removed or destroyed all contrary evidence. It may seem unbelievable but the real story of Belgian Relief has never been taught in schools or universities in Belgium. We were stunned to discover at a Conference in Brussels on 6 November 2014, (‘Expériences et représentations de la pénurie alimentaire durant la Guerre 14-18. Allemagne-Belgique’, chaired by Professor Laurence Van Ypersele) that the subject of Belgian Relief is still not covered in Belgium colleges today. Generations of Belgians remain ignorant of the machinations of the bankers and financiers, politicians and governments (and here we include the Belgian, British and American  governments) and ordinary citizens too, who abused what purported to be a charitable venture in order to prolong the war and make obscene profits. If the Commission for Relief of Belgium was so vital to the nations’s survival, why is it not be celebrated annually and given pride of place in Belgium’s history?

As the Belgian academics, Michael Amara and Hubert Roland  made clear ‘To this day a dark shadow hangs over the history of Belgian Relief. For many, the story of food provision has been raised to a myth created after the war.’ [3] What is this dark shadow? What is this myth? Why does a sense of embarrassment hang over the work of ‘American Relief’ as it became known? The Musee Royal de L’Armee et d’Histoire Militaire in Brussels put together a special centenary exhibition in 2014 about the city during the First World War. It featured an ‘American Relief’ shop with crates of Columbia River salmon, fancy apricots from San Francisco and other relatively exotic produce. The background narrative to the exhibition is bland and makes no effort to explain the central purpose of an organisation which helped supply the German army. Is this yet another example of the deliberate glossing over of unpalatable history or a reflection of how deeply the falsehood has become embedded in Belgium? Even so, the exhibition merits a visit if you happen to be in  Brussels. [4]

And little wonder that the facts of the story remain so sketchy. All of the pertinent primary evidence about the workings of this group was removed from Europe after the war on the instruction of its director, Herbert Hoover, and taken to America. What Hoover could not control, like adverse reports in newspapers, official court judgements or published company returns, he tried to suppress. Additionally, as we will show in great detail in a future blog, those who dared make claims about the illegal nature of his dealings were quashed, threatened or otherwise marginalised.

The Commission for Relief in Belgium (CRB) between 1914-1917 was an organisation that hailed itself as ‘the greatest humanitarian undertaking that the world had ever seen’. [5]  Indeed by the time the Commission closed its doors and rendered what passed as public accounts in 1920, [6] it claimed to have spent over $13,000,000,000 on relief for the people of Belgium. (In current monetary values that would be approximately $154,000,000,000) [7] According to one official history, ‘A chapter was written in the history of the Great War that will be read with the deepest interest for hundreds of years to come.’ [8] It will not. Not if those who control history continue to have their way.

The story has already been buried deep and virtually ignored in official Belgian history. Indeed, few histories of the First World War even make mention of the CRB and it has slipped inexplicably under the radar of most academic historians. Additionally, the war memoirs of Lloyd George (Prime Minister 1916-1922, ) and Sir Edward Grey (Foreign Secretary 1906-1916), [9] two of the main British Cabinet members with whom this organisation had direct contact, failed to even mention Belgian Relief. Likewise, there is no reference to this ‘humanitarian’ work in the otherwise verbose letters from Herbert Asquith (Prime Minister 1908-1916) to his secret love, Venetia Stanley. [10] It is as if they were trying to say  ‘it had nothing to do with us’. It most certainly did.

The following series of blogs will closely examine the constituent parts of this ‘humanitarian’ venture to unearth how and why it was organised, what it ultimately achieved, who benefitted, and how those involved perpetrated an enormous fraud. Belgian Relief was reputedly organised to feed the poor and needy in Belgium and Northern France. That merely provided the cover for everything that lay behind the scam. Through it, the Secret Elite deliberately supplied the German army with much needed foodstuffs, without which the Germans could not have continued to fight. The food sent in to Belgium by the relief organisation enabled much of the food actually produced there to be directed to Germany. Little known, but strongly denied, the men directly involved, especially the bankers, made fortunes from it. The humanitarian aspect was a vital and effective cover for a clandestine organisation that benefitted the ‘money-power’ and quite deliberately prolonged the war.

A number of key individuals were central to the creation, continuation and promotion of the two main agencies which supplied food to Belgium during the German occupation. Namely (1) the American Commission for Relief in Belgium (CRB) and (2) the Comite National des Secours et Alimentation in Brussels (CNSA). Both were linked by profession, business or diplomatic status. A combination of American, German and Belgian bankers, businessmen and diplomats, approved and advised by the Secret Elite in London and Washington, were entrusted with the responsibility of managing what in normal circumstances of war would be termed, ‘feeding the enemy’. Under the guise of saving the starving populations in Belgium and Northern (occupied) France, this became a bold, well planned organisation which involved a prodigious campaign of propaganda supported by national governments. Ultimately, Belgian Relief was accountable to no-one.

It spent hundreds of millions of dollars in procuring food and other war supplies, largely, but not exclusively, in America and Argentina. The organisations shipped millions of tons of produce through the neutral port of Rotterdam to the mouth of the Rhine where it was supposed to be handed to the Belgian Comite National for local distribution. Rotterdam is the gateway to Germany, not Belgium; a glance of any map of Europe will confirm this. By agreement of both neutrals and belligerents, the sole port of entry for all the food and materials sent to Belgium was literally sited at the head of Germany’s arterial river. All exits from Rotterdam and Holland passed through Germany or German occupied territory. Dutch neutrality guaranteed nothing. The whole of the Belgian Relief programme depended on German willingness to countenance these imports. They did. It is our belief that behind this veneer of international humanitarianism, a cruel confidence trick was played out on the world stage.

Between 1914-1918, hundreds of thousands of hungry and sometimes desperate Belgian and French communities were supported by 4,500 local committees comprising workers’  groups, Catholic and Protestant benevolent societies and other local agencies in ten Belgian provinces and six French districts. These good people worked tirelessly to save their fellow countrymen from hunger. Of that there is ample evidence. [11] Many desperate and needy Belgian mothers, children and families in poverty were indeed supported through the barren war years by the relief organisations, but they provided a front, a public focus, behind which Germany was enabled to sustain and prolong its war effort so that it dragged on and on well beyond 1915 when it could have been ended. Some of the Belgian Relief’ food went directly to the German army on the Western Front, and it enabled home-grown Belgian produce to be sent across Europe to German cities and towns. Not by chance, but by design; not in a haphazard occasional manner, but methodically, with clear channels of communication that provided ongoing regular supplies.

This Secret Elite inspired solution to Germany’s critical food problem was an affront to the concept of humanitarianism. It required a trusted and ruthless manager with a proven track record of greed and loyalty to the British Establishment. He had to appear to act independently yet have access to political and financial power in Britain, Europe and America. He required the services of international banks to handle vast sums of money and had to have connections with world-wide shipping companies to facilitate very complex transportation logistics. He needed to be a neutral citizen, to understand the power of positive propaganda, and have access to newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic. One candidate with proven experience, who could be trusted not to flinch in the face of a moral dilemma, was known to and favoured by the Secret Elite.

His name was Herbert Clark Hoover. He would go on to become the 31st President of the United States.

[1] December 10, 2014 -January 28, 2015.
[2] George I Gay and H H Fisher, Public Relations of the Commission For Relief In Belgium, published in 2 volumes by Stanford University in 1929.  It remains the official version, and is widely quoted as a valuable source. http://net.lib.byu.edu/estu/wwi/comment/CRB/CRB1-TC.htm Gay was on the executive staff as a statistician and promoted to Assistant Director in the London office of the CRB from 1918 onwards. He was sent to California in 1923 to ‘ work on the the records of the Belgian Relief commission. [New York Times Archives, 26 October, 1964.] Hoover’s official biographer, George H Nash, published a 3 volume life of the man who would one day be President of America. seehttp://net.lib.byu.edu/estu/wwi/comment/CRB/CRB1-TC.htm  The book written by Tracey Barrett Kittredge, The History of the Commission for Relief in Belgium 1914-17 – Primary Source Edition, was pulped by order of Herbert Hoover, even though she was member of the Commission who served in Belgium and France. The American diplomat Hugh Gibson’s A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium, was rewritten and amended to glorify Hoover. http://www.ourstory.info/library/2-ww1/Legation/Gibson8.html
[3] Michael Amara and Hubert Roland, Gouverner en Belgique occupee: Oscar von der Lancken-Wakenitz – Rapports d’activite 1915-1918 collection, Comparatisme et Societe, no.1, 2004, introduction, p. 39.
[4] Currently at Parc du Cinquantenaire 3 Jubelpark, Bruxelles.
[5] George H Nash, Herbert Hoover The Humanitarian, 1914-1917, preface, p. x.
[6] The Commission for Relief in Belgium, Balance sheets and Accounts, by joint liquidators, Edgar Rickard and W. B. Pollard https://archive.org/stream/executivepersonn00comm#page/n7/mode/2up
[7] See Measuring Worth.com http://www.measuringworth.com/uscompare/relativevalue.php
[8] Edwin W. Morse; America in the War, Part V. Relief Work in Belgium and Northern France; Herbert Hoover and Engineering Efficiency, p. 175.
[9] David Lloyd George, War Memoirs, and Viscount Grey of Fallodon Twenty-Five Years, 1892-1916.
[10] Micheal and Eleanor Brock, HH Asquith, Letters to Venetia Stanley.
[11] New York Times, 17 July, 1921.