November 24, 2011

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

By Jeff Lipkes
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...(Read Full Article)