Poor Little Belgium and the Greater War. The Commission for Relief in Belgium and the Humanitarian Mobilization of the World, 1914-1919.

Why are we concerned with the suffering of distant strangers? Why do we give millions to alleviate the distress of those who we have never met? And why do we care intensely for some while the suffering of others goes unnoticed? The project explores these questions with regard to one of the widest-ranging humanitarian undertakings of the early 20th century: the relief of occupied Belgium during the First World War. Focusing on the global operations and networks of the Commission for Relief in Belgium, the largest non-governmental aid organization of its time, it throws light on the emergence of modern humanitarianism and how it impacted the course of the Great War.

The results to be expected from this project (which will become apparent only in a few years when key articles have been published) will reframe how we look at US aid to Belgium and Great War humanitarianism more generally.

The project explores the global mechanisms and implications of humanitarian action during the Great War. In particular, it studies the worldwide humanitarian campaign for 'poor little Belgium', which was overseen by the one of the war's largest and most important NGOs: the Commission for Relief in Belgium (CRB). Drawing on previously un- or underutilized archival material, the project investigates the emergence of the CRB's broad network of relief committees across Europe, South and North America, and Australasia. It throws light on how a global public mobilized on behalf of 'distant suffering', thereby decentering the history of wartime humanitarianism, which continues to be told from a primarily institutional, donor-focused and national perspective. Moreover, the project interrogates the ultimate significance of this global relief effort in light of the Great War and the rise of modern humanitarianism. It posits that the humanitarian engagement on behalf of Belgium was a crucial, if generally overlooked, element in the cultural mobilization of Allied and neutral societies alike. The relief of Belgium forged a common 'humanitarian front', which clearly transcended the neat lines historians have long drawn between battlefront and home front, center and periphery, neutrals and belligerents. In this way, the project strongly emphasizes the global ramifications of a spatially 'Greater War', which reached far beyond the iconic European battlefields. In addition, it prompts us to understand the Great War as a key moment in the formation of global civil society. Even as patriotic, national charities dominated the field, Belgian relief built networks, narratives, and concern around a common humanitarian cause, which (at least partly) outlasted the war.