“An excellent history that should catapult Miller to the top tier of popular historians.” Kirkus Starred Review

During World War I the American-led, private organization named the Commission for Relief in Belgium (CRB) initiated, organized, and supervised the largest food and relief drive the world had ever seen. Working in concert with its counterpart in Belgium, the Comite National, the CRB fed and clothed for four years nearly 10 million Belgians and northern French trapped behind German lines.

Young, idealistic Americans (called CRB delegates) volunteered to go into German-occupied Belgium to guarantee the food would not be taken by the Germans. These humanitarian crusaders had to maintain strict neutrality in what they said and did as they watched the Belgians suffer under the harsh German regime.

Covering August 1914 through December 1914, this nonfiction book follows a handful of CRB delegates, a twenty-two-year-old Belgian woman, two U.S. diplomats, the head of the CRB, and a Belgian businessman and a Belgian priest who team up to fight the German occupation.

One of America’s finest hours in helping others is a story that few have heard.