Editing Herbert Hoover (section)

===Relief in Europe===
{{Further|Presidency of Woodrow Wilson}}
{{Main|Commission for Relief in Belgium}}
[[World War I]] broke out in August 1914, pitting Germany and its allies against France and its allies. The German [[Schlieffen plan]] was to achieve a quick victory by marching through neutral Belgium to envelop the French Army east of Paris. The maneuver failed to reach Paris, however the Germans were successful in taking nearly all of Belgium and would occupy the majority of nation for the remainder of the war. Hoover and other London-based American businessmen established a committee to organize the return of the roughly 100,000 Americans stranded in Europe. Hoover was appointed as the committee's chairman and, with the assent of Congress and the [[Presidency of Woodrow Wilson|Wilson administration]], took charge of the distribution of relief to Americans in Europe.{{sfn|Whyte 2017|pp=132–136}} Hoover later stated, "I did not realize it at the moment, but on August 3, 1914, my career was over forever. I was on the slippery road of public life."<ref>{{cite web|title=The Humanitarian Years|url=http://hoover.archives.gov/exhibits/Hooverstory/gallery02/index.html|work=The Museum Exhibit Galleries|publisher=[[Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum]]|access-date=February 16, 2011|mode=cs2|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110109151702/http://hoover.archives.gov/exhibits/Hooverstory/gallery02/index.html|archive-date=January 9, 2011|url-status=dead}}</ref> By early October 1914, Hoover's organization had distributed relief to at least 40,000 Americans.{{sfn|Whyte 2017|pp=137–138}}

The [[German invasion of Belgium (1914)|German invasion of Belgium]] in August 1914 set a food crisis into motion in Belgium, a nation which relied heavily on food imports. The Germans refused to take responsibility for feeding Belgian citizens in captured territory, and the British refused to lift their [[Blockade of Germany (1914–1919)|blockade]] of [[German occupation of Belgium during World War I|German-occupied Belgium]] unless the U.S. government supervised Belgian food imports as a neutral party in the war.{{sfn|Whyte 2017|pp=140–142}} With the cooperation of the Wilson administration and the [[Comité National de Secours et d'Alimentation|CNSA]], a Belgian relief organization, Hoover established the [[Commission for Relief in Belgium]] (CRB).{{sfn|Whyte 2017|pp=143–144}} The CRB obtained and imported millions of tons of foodstuffs for the CNSA to distribute, and helped ensure that the German army did not appropriate the food. Private donations and government grants supplied the majority of its $11-million-a-month budget, and the CRB became a veritable independent republic of relief, with its own flag, navy, factories, mills, and railroads.{{sfn|Burner|1996|p=79}}<ref>George H. Nash, "The "Great Humanitarian": Herbert Hoover, the Relief of Belgium, and the Reconstruction of Europe after War I." ''The Tocqueville Review'' 38.2 (2017): 55–70.</ref>{{Failed verification|date=December 2023}}

Hoover worked 14-hour days from London, administering the distribution of over two million tons of food to nine million war victims. In an early form of [[shuttle diplomacy]], he crossed the [[North Sea]] forty times to meet with German authorities and persuade them to allow food shipments.<ref name="Hudson2014">{{cite book|first=John|last=Hudson|title=Christmas 1914: The First World War at Home and Abroad|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=a1YTDQAAQBAJ&pg=PT31|date=October 6, 2014|publisher=History Press|isbn=978-0-7509-6038-0|pages=31}}</ref> He also convinced British [[Chancellor of the Exchequer]] [[David Lloyd George]] to allow individuals to send money to the people of Belgium, thereby lessening workload of the CRB.{{sfn|Whyte 2017|pp=158–159}} At the request of the French government, the CRB began delivering supplies to the people of [[German occupation of north-east France during World War I|German-occupied Northern France]] in 1915.{{sfn|Whyte 2017|p=163}} In 1926, American diplomat [[Walter Hines Page|Walter Page]] described Hoover as "probably the only man living who has privately (i.e., without holding office) negotiated understandings with the British, French, German, Dutch, and Belgian governments".<ref name="HendrickWilson1926">{{cite book|first1=Burton Jesse|last1=Hendrick|first2=Woodrow|last2=Wilson|title=The life and letters of Walter H. Page|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wJonAQAAMAAJ|year=1926|publisher=Doubleday, Page|page=313}}</ref><ref name="WilsonLink1982">{{cite book|first1=Woodrow|last1=Wilson|first2=Arthur Stanley|last2=Link|title=The Papers of Woodrow Wilson|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PjsJAQAAIAAJ|year=1982|publisher=Princeton University Press|page=369|isbn=978-0-691-04690-7}} vol 40 p 369.</ref>