In practice, however, every American intervention in Europe – Hoover’s relief programme for Belgium no less than Pershing’s independent American Army – was dependent on the cooperative logistical apparatus established by the Entente. In 1918, if Belgium continued to be fed, it was not only on account of Hoover’s organizational genius, or America’s largesse, but because the inter-Allied shipping agency placed the priority of American relief shipments even above the needs of the home fronts of France, Britain and Italy.29
