Thanking America: When Americans Save Lives Overseas, it Doesn't Make the Textbooks

American Thinker ^ | November 24, 2011 | Jeff Lipkes

[varialectio]

In October 1914, over 5 million Belgians faced starvation. The German Army had invaded on August 4 and swept across the country in three weeks. Revisionist historians would later snicker about "atrocities" invented by the British, but the Kaiser's troops executed over 5,500 Belgians, women and children as well as men, though there was no civilian resistance to the invasion. Over 2 million refugees fled to Holland, France, and Britain. The Germans requisitioned all grain, flour, livestock, fruit, and vegetables. They seized the railroads, canals, all motor vehicles, and telegraph and telephone lines, and removed machinery from factories. The economy collapsed. The British naval blockade made the situation desperate, as Belgium imported nearly 78% of its food.

America stepped into the breach. A taciturn mining engineer living in London, Herbert Hoover, had just raised money from other expatriate businessmen to help American tourists stranded in Europe by the war. He was contacted by a fellow engineer working in Brussels whose effort to ship 1,500 tons of food had been thwarted by the blockade. Hoover said he would see what he could do, and the Committee for Relief in Belgium was born. (snip)

Never heard of the CRB? Not surprising. It's not mentioned in any of the eight college U.S. history texts I consulted. All are among the top fifteen assigned in the country, based on syllabi posted online at syllabusfinder.com.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/11/thanking_america_when_americans_save_lives_overseas_it_doesnt_make_the_textbooks.html#ixzz1efqmtSJf

[Jonty30]

What are the odds that many people, who hate America, just don’t know the good it does in the world.

[No One Special]

Americans need to connect with their own history. At the most, one out of ten may have a clue about any of the events in this article. It should be common knowledge.

[varialectio]

Yeah, and it’s an amazing story. The CRB fed over 5 million Belgians and 2 million French for 4 years. It was a state within a state, with it’s own flag, ships, canal barges, warehouses, etc.

[bert]

There is a long article in the current Forbes detailing the efforts of Bill and Melinda Gates to provide vaccines in awesome quantities to prevent ordinary childhood disease.

I haven’t read it all yet but I find their efforts pretty amazing

[NonValueAdded]

ping

[txhurl]

I think my worst fear has come true. Tocquville: “America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”

Although nothing a little sending zero to .. anywhere can’t and won’t fix.

[No One Special]

Here’s a great take on the whole Great War era.

What We Lost In The Great War
July/August 1992

Seventy-five years ago this spring a very different America waded into the
seminal catastrophe of the twentieth century. World War I did more than kill
millions of people; it destroyed the West’s faith in the very institutions
that had made it the hope and envy of the world.

Continues:
http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1992/4/1992_4_80.shtml

And then there’s this:

Who kept the Belgians’ black bread buttered?
Who fed the world when millions muttered?
Who knows the needs of every nation?
Who keeps the keys of conservation?
Who fills the bins when mines aren’t earning?
Who keeps the home fires banked and burning?
Who’ll never win a presidential position?
For he isn’t a practical politician?
Hoover–that’s all!

Just before the Armistice, Secretary of State Lansing was quoted as saying
“Empty stomachs mean Bolsheviks”.
“Full stomachs mean no Bolsheviks”.

The internet gives us the opportunity to easily learn some stuff that was not taught us in the schools. Good thing.

[No One Special]

Whoops. Here’s an address that works:
http://www.americanheritage.com/content/what-we-lost-great-war

[varialectio]

Thanks for the link. The article looks interesting. I’ve bookmarked it for later.

Thanks also for the campaign ditty and the quote. Unfortunately, the full stomachs in 1922 may have kept the Bolsheviks in power.

Ran across a good quote from Jeane Kirkpatrick recently: “Americans need to face the truth about themselves, no matter how pleasant it is.”

[No One Special]

You’re very welcome. :-)

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks varialectio.

In October 1914, over 5 million Belgians faced starvation... America stepped into the breach. A taciturn mining engineer living in London, Herbert Hoover, had just raised money from other expatriate businessmen to help American tourists stranded in Europe by the war. He was contacted by a fellow engineer working in Brussels whose effort to ship 1,500 tons of food had been thwarted by the blockade. Hoover said he would see what he could do, and the Committee for Relief in Belgium was born. (snip) Never heard of the CRB? Not surprising. It's not mentioned in any of the eight college U.S. history texts I consulted. All are among the top fifteen assigned in the country..

[iowamark]

We don’t hear about the CRB because Herbert Hoover started it.

[rmlew]

The efforts of Hoover are generally overlooked. However, I cannot let the following slide: "Students are misinformed about the origins of the war as well. The inaccurate overviews are particularly deplorable, given the importance of the casus belli in the eventual American decision to join in. Two of the books place the blame on Serbia, the victim of Austrian aggression."

The Crown Prince of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and his wife were murdered by the Black Hand, a movement run by Serbian officers. Austro-Hungary had every right to punish the Serbs for their terrorism and act of war born out of fanatic irridentism and revanchism, and the slavophilic lunacy of Czar Nicholas II in supporting them.

[SunkenCiv]

IMV, World War I started because everyone seemed to want it, and because Bismarck’s treaty system fell apart as the treaties expired. Germany and to a lesser extent Austria were truly ready for the battles, the Russians, British, and French were not. The French had been jonesing for war since their humiliation in the Franco-Prussian war.

The Serbians’ assassination of the Archduke and his wife triggered the war, but the only right Austria-Hungary had in Serbia was the right of conquest.

[varialectio]

You ought to look at some of the great books on the origins—Schmitt, Albertini, Fischer (his second book, War of Illusions), Geiss and Rohl. The best essay collection is edited by Keith Wilson.

Yes, Apis, the head of Serbian secret service, had plotted an assassination, but called it off. The guys in Sarajevo were acting on their own. Apis was acting independently of the govt. in the first place. He was executed a few years later. The govt. knew something was up, tried to prevent the terrorists (who were Bosnians) from getting back into Bosnia, and alerted the Austrians. The Austrians did not take the hint. The Ambassador had no specific information to give.

The point is, tho’, that Austria knew none of this when it invaded. An Austrian investigator had cleared the Serbian govt. It all came out later.

The Serbs accepted 9 of the 10 incredibly stiff demands unconditionally. (Including firing teachers for “Anti-Austrian opinions.”) As to the 10th, they asked that the question of an investigation be referred to the Hague or to a conference of ambassadors. The latter, meeting in London, had settled disputes arising out of the First Balkan War. The Serbs wanted a joint investigation, not one conducted solely by Austria.

Britain and Russia proposed a new London conference and lots of other mediation proposals. These were all rejected by Germany and Austria.

Under international law, you do not invade a country because you suspect that an assassin (your own subject) may have had some connection to officials in that country. This was only a pretext for Austria and Germany. Lee Harvey Oswald did not give us the right to annex Cuba.

Germany kept pushing Austria. (See all the cables edited in Kautsky, Outbreak of War: German Documents) Germany had threatened war in 1905, 1908, and 1911. This time Russia and France didn’t back down. German military leaders feared Russian and French military build-ups and urged a preemptive strike. The Kaiser himself was content w/ the diplomatic victory Austria had already won.

[JimRed]

The internet gives us the opportunity to easily learn some stuff that was not taught us in the schools.

That's one prime reason the the regime wants to get the net under control!