convened a meeting with diplomats from France and Italy and talked them out of canceling their food contracts. They had done it under British pressure, and their people needed the food. But these victories were all but destroyed by a British-French counterattack. The Allied Blockade Committee forbade any sale of forthcoming American food to Germany from the neutral countries. Hoover stubbornly shipped the food anyway and stored it in Copenhagen and other cities. Soon neutral warehouseswere bulging with $550 million worth of fats, wheat, pork and other products—and Hoover began to worry about a financial disaster that would rebound on American farmers. 35
After more wrangling, Hoover became head of a compromise organization, the Supreme Council of Supply and Relief, with representatives from all the Allied governments. At their first meeting on January 11, 1919, the delegates informed Hoover that not a pat of butter or a peck of wheat would go to Germany until it surrendered its merchant fleet. They claimed this was necessary to alleviate a world shipping shortage, caused by the depredations of the U-boats. In fact, there was no shortage. By this time, shipbuilding efforts by the British and Americans had replaced 90 percent of the tonnage the U-boats had sent to Davy Jones’s locker. What the Allies wanted was the German merchant fleet, which had been omitted from the armistice accords. 36
Two days later, Wilson, Lloyd George, Clemenceau and Orlando took up the problem of getting food to Germany. The French again insisted Germany could not pay for any food from its gold supply, and Belgium backed them up, once more underscoring its Paris satellite status. The desperate Germans were willing to surrender their merchant marine if they could get a guarantee of some food. But the French ban on paying for it in gold made any and all shipments impossible. The Germans could not raise money by selling goods in foreign markets from their factories. The Armistice Commission had banned German exports. For the next two months, this impasse continued, while tens of thousands of men, women and children succumbed to malnutrition and starvation in Germany and Austria. 37
A member of Hoover’s mission sent back the following description of German children in one city:“You think this is a kindergarten for the little ones. No, these are children of seven and eight years. Tiny faces with large dull eyes, overshadowed by huge puffed rickety foreheads, their small arms just skin and bones, and above the crooked legs with their dislocated joints, the swollen stomachs of the hunger edema.” 38
This was a long way from the “humane peace” that Woodrow Wilson had promised Congress he would deliver in his mission to Europe. Wilson—and the rest of the American delegation—were finding out that cheers on the Champs Élysée and in Trafalgar Square did not translate into political power.
VIII
On January 1, in a royal train provided by the Italian government, Wilson and his wife headed for Rome. As the train wound through the snow-covered Alps, the monks of Saint Bernard’s Abbey were forced to slaughter six of their famous rescue dogs because they had run out of food. Oblivious to such details, the president reveled in the adoration of the Italian people. His arrival in the Eternal City was a replay of his reception in Paris. Masses of Romans chanted, “Viva Wilson, god of peace.” Low-flying planes dropped flowers on his triumphal procession. There were pictures of him in every shop window. The streets were sprinkled with golden sand, a tradition that went back to ancient Rome’s days of imperial glory.
Prime Minister Vittorio Orlando and his fellow politicians already viewed Wilson with not a little anxiety. The president still objected to their attempt to claim the Dalmatian coast and other territories promised them in the 1915 Treaty of London. Lately they had been claiming the city of Fiume and portions of the new defunct
After more wrangling, Hoover became head of a compromise organization, the Supreme Council of Supply and Relief, with representatives from all the Allied governments. At their first meeting on January 11, 1919, the delegates informed Hoover that not a pat of butter or a peck of wheat would go to Germany until it surrendered its merchant fleet. They claimed this was necessary to alleviate a world shipping shortage, caused by the depredations of the U-boats. In fact, there was no shortage. By this time, shipbuilding efforts by the British and Americans had replaced 90 percent of the tonnage the U-boats had sent to Davy Jones’s locker. What the Allies wanted was the German merchant fleet, which had been omitted from the armistice accords. 36
Two days later, Wilson, Lloyd George, Clemenceau and Orlando took up the problem of getting food to Germany. The French again insisted Germany could not pay for any food from its gold supply, and Belgium backed them up, once more underscoring its Paris satellite status. The desperate Germans were willing to surrender their merchant marine if they could get a guarantee of some food. But the French ban on paying for it in gold made any and all shipments impossible. The Germans could not raise money by selling goods in foreign markets from their factories. The Armistice Commission had banned German exports. For the next two months, this impasse continued, while tens of thousands of men, women and children succumbed to malnutrition and starvation in Germany and Austria. 37
A member of Hoover’s mission sent back the following description of German children in one city:“You think this is a kindergarten for the little ones. No, these are children of seven and eight years. Tiny faces with large dull eyes, overshadowed by huge puffed rickety foreheads, their small arms just skin and bones, and above the crooked legs with their dislocated joints, the swollen stomachs of the hunger edema.” 38
This was a long way from the “humane peace” that Woodrow Wilson had promised Congress he would deliver in his mission to Europe. Wilson—and the rest of the American delegation—were finding out that cheers on the Champs Élysée and in Trafalgar Square did not translate into political power.
VIII
On January 1, in a royal train provided by the Italian government, Wilson and his wife headed for Rome. As the train wound through the snow-covered Alps, the monks of Saint Bernard’s Abbey were forced to slaughter six of their famous rescue dogs because they had run out of food. Oblivious to such details, the president reveled in the adoration of the Italian people. His arrival in the Eternal City was a replay of his reception in Paris. Masses of Romans chanted, “Viva Wilson, god of peace.” Low-flying planes dropped flowers on his triumphal procession. There were pictures of him in every shop window. The streets were sprinkled with golden sand, a tradition that went back to ancient Rome’s days of imperial glory.
Prime Minister Vittorio Orlando and his fellow politicians already viewed Wilson with not a little anxiety. The president still objected to their attempt to claim the Dalmatian coast and other territories promised them in the 1915 Treaty of London. Lately they had been claiming the city of Fiume and portions of the new defunct
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