Abstract
The centenary of the First World War has, appropriately, unleashed not only myriad volumes dedicated to the big and broad questions of the first ‘Great War’ of the twentieth century, but also scholars and writers dedicated to examining the war from new and varied perspectives. There are new dissertations and books dedicated to the men and women who engaged in the war not through use of arms, but through use of alms (as nurses, doctors, and humanitarians), ink and paper (as journalists), and sometimes as war tourists, eager to see a new and modern war first-hand (and maybe make some money afterwards). The husband and wife team of Ed and Libby Klekowski provide a detailed survey of the many Americans who travelled to German-occupied Belgium during the war. While their work does not deeply engage with or attempt to overturn any broad or deep historiographical debates about the war in general or the occupation of Belgium in particular, it is an engaging narrative, full of interesting and, often, long quotations from the diaries, journals, letters, and other works (published and unpublished) by men such as the journalist Richard Harding Davis, who surveyed the early days of the German invasion, to the diplomat Brand Whitlock, who helped Herbert Hoover and his band of plucky humanitarians provide humanitarian food relief to Belgium up until the United States entered the war as a belligerent in April 1917. Readers will also enjoy the many pictures that the Klekowskis have included, some from their personal collection.
The Klekowskis spent a good amount of time in Belgium surveying the places they write about and have mined several American archives for a wealth of primary sources. While they do not make any grand interpretive arguments about American involvement pre-April 1917, their work fits in well with scholarship that seeks to uncover voices other than the traditional battle-weary warriors and brave nurses that are most often featured in First World War scholarship.
This new brand of scholarship seeks to show that there were many motivations for individual involvement in the war, especially for Americans ahead of their country’s entry in April 1917. ‘Wartime Belgium became a “must see destination” for certain peculiar types of American tourists,’ write the Klekowskis (p. 109). Throughout their book they detail the sometimes confounding contradiction between Americans driving around in cars in a country devastated by war and, often, on the brink of starvation. In other cases, as with the American-led Commission for Relief in Belgium, the use of cars and the Americans’ freedom of movement served more professional and helpful purposes: to provide food for blockaded and occupied Belgium. ‘The CRB’, write the Klekowskis, ‘eventually would become the most important volunteer relief organization in the world’ (p. 134). The CRB’s work is detailed over two chapters, providing historians an additional source for greater examination of that particular humanitarian endeavour.
The Klekowskis have a deep admiration of Belgium and a particular interest in highlighting the ‘eyewitness’ perspective of the men and women involved in First World War activities (they previously co-wrote a book on Americans in France during the war). With this most recent publication, they have not only put that admiration on display, but have also provided professional historians an excellent starting place for additional studies on Americans in Europe during the First World War.