Hostname: page-component-6766d58669-tq7bh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-15T12:29:06.474Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Promoting the State through Food Scarcity: Czechoslovakia and the United States after World War I

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 March 2024

Dagmar Hájková Open the ORCID record for Dagmar Hájková [Opens in a new window]
Dagmar Hájková*
Affiliation:
Masaryk Institute and Archives CAS, Prague 8, Czech Republic
*
Email: hajkova@mua.cas.cz
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

After the collapse of the Habsburg monarchy, Czechoslovak leaders sought ways to strengthen the state's position in Europe and considered the republic's good reputation as essential to stabilizing the state and securing food supplies. This article analyzes how the Czechoslovak authorities portrayed their country's image and the postwar food shortage, and who participated in its construction. Hunger and scarcity were interpreted as the result of years of deliberate exploitation by Austria-Hungary, and requests for aid were justified on the grounds that a democratic and moral state deserved aid as a matter of priority. Czechoslovak leaders sought to secure a favorable position among the victorious powers by establishing a consistent historical narrative, an elaborate system of publicity, lobbying networks, and personal relationships with Entente officials. They were able to present their country's situation in a positive manner, even in terms of scarcity, and to promise their citizens a better future. This article examines the ways the Czechoslovak state communicated its need for humanitarian aid, particularly from the United States. It argues that the Czechoslovak effort to capitalize on its self-proclaimed moral reputation was partially successful in attracting a circle of supporters, even promoters, and in creating and cultivating its international image as “an island of democracy in Central Europe.”

Keywords

Humanitarianisminternational reliefAmerican Relief Administrationfood supplyCzechoslovakia-United States relationsT. G. Masaryk

Information

Type
Article
Information
Austrian History Yearbook , Volume 55 , May 2024 , pp. 312 - 326
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Regents of the University of Minnesota

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

1 Hsia, Ke-Chin, Victims’ State: War and Welfare in Austria, 1868–1925 (New York, 2022), 6Google Scholar.

2 Kind-Kovács, Friederike, Budapest's Children: Humanitarian Relief in the Aftermath of the Great War (Bloomington, 2022)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cox, Mary Elisabeth, Hunger in War and Peace: Women and Children in Germany, 1914–1924 (Oxford, 2019)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The same attitude was present in Austria, as analysed by Adlgasser, Franz, “The Roots of Communist Containment: American Food Aid in Austria and Hungary after World War I,” Contemporary Austrian Studies 3, Austria in the Nineteen Fifties, eds. Bischof, Günter, Pelinka, Anton, and Steininger, Rolf (New Brunswick, 1995), 171–88Google Scholar.

3 Blaive, Muriel, “National Narratives of Czech Identity from the 19th Century to the Present,” in Anton Pelinka et al., Geschichtsbuch Mitteleuropa. Vom Fin de Siècle bis zur Gegenwart, (Vienna, 2016), 163–64Google Scholar; Hájková, Dagmar and Wingfield, Nancy M., “Czech(-oslovak) National Commemorations during the Interwar Period: Tomáš G. Masaryk and the Battle of White Mountain Avenged,” Acta Histriae 18, no. 3 (2010): 425–52Google Scholar.

4 Orzoff, Andrea, Battle for the Castle: The Myth of Czechoslovakia in Europe, 1914–1948, (Oxford, 2011)Google Scholar.

5 Rosenberg, Emily, Spreading the American Dream: American Economic and Cultural Expansion, 1890–1945 (American Century) (New York, 1982), 117Google Scholar; Irwin, Julia, “Taming Total War: Great War Era American Humanitarianism and Its Legacies,” Diplomatic History 38, no. 4 (2014): 763–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Konrád, Ota and Kučera, Rudolf, Paths out of the Apocalypse: Physical Violence in the Fall and Renewal of Central Europe, 1914–1922 (Oxford, 2022)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wolff, Larry, Woodrow Wilson and the Reimagining of Eastern Europe (Stanford, 2020)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cornwall, Mark and Newman, John Paul, eds., Sacrifice and Rebirth: The Legacy of the Last Habsburg War (New York, 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Miller, Paul B. and Morelon, Claire, eds., Embers of Empire: Continuity and Rupture in the Habsburg Successor States after 1918 (New York, 2019)Google Scholar.

7 Barbora Jakobyová, “Americká potravinová pomoc pre děti po prvej svetovej vojne” [American food aid for children after World War I], in Dlhá cesta od monarchie k republike: zmeny režimov, myslenia a životného štýlu na Slovensku a v strednej Európe od polovice 19. do polovice 20. storočia [The long road from Monarchy to Republic: changes in regimes, thinking and lifestyles in Slovakia and Central Europe from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century], ed. Matej Hanula et al. (Bratislava, 2021), 177–92; Halina Parafianowicz, “Americký mýtus a amerikanizace Československa po první světové válce” [The American Myth and the Americanization of Czechoslovakia after the First World War], Lidé města/Urban People 5, no. 9 (2003): https://lidemesta.cuni.cz/LM-484.html; Matějka, Ondřej, “Un mur contre le bolchevisme? La Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) dans la Tchécoslovaquie de l'entre-deux-guerres,” Le Mouvement social 2, no. 267 (2019): 25–46Google Scholar.

8 Phelps, Nicole M., U.S.-Habsburg Relations from 1815 to the Paris Peace Conference: Sovereignty Transformed (Cambridge, 2013), 250CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Wolff, Woodrow Wilson and the Reimagining of Eastern Europe, 125; Cooper, John Milton, Woodrow Wilson: A Biography (New York, 2009), 438Google Scholar; Kovtun, George J., Masaryk & America: Testimony of a Relationship (Washington, 1988), 55fGoogle Scholar.

10 McElroy, Robert W., Morality and American Foreign Policy: The Role of Ethics in International Affairs (Princeton, 1992), 70Google Scholar. Masaryk's American wife, Charlotte, was an exponent of these values in the Czech context.

11 “Zpráva T. G. Masaryka ministerské radě o zahraniční činnosti 23. 12. 1918” [T.G. Masaryk's report to the Ministerial Council on foreign activities], in T. G. Masaryk, Cesta demokracie I., Projevy – články – rozhovory [The Path of Democracy, vol. I. Speeches—articles—interviews] (Prague 2003), 48, 52; “Poselství prezidenta republiky 22. 12. 1918” [Message of the President of the Republic] in T. G. Masaryk, Cesta demokracie I, 24–33.

12 On the food situation in the Bohemian Lands during the war see, for example, Claire Morelon, “A threat to national unity? The urban–rural antagonism in Prague during the First World War in comparative perspective” in Frontwechsel: Österreich-Ungarns “Großer Krieg” im Vergleich, eds. Julia Walleczek-Fritz, Wolfram Dornik and Stefan Wedrac (Vienna, 2014), 325–42; Peter Heumos, “‘Kartoffeln her oder es gibt eine Revolution.’ Hungerkrawalle, Streiks und Massenproteste in den böhmischen Ländern 1914–1918,” in Sozialgeschichte und soziale Bewegungen in der Historiographie der Tschechischen und Slowakischen Republik, ed. Peter Heumos (Essen, 2000), 148–76; Rudolf Kučera, Rationed Life: Science, Everyday Life, and Working-Class Politics in the Bohemian Lands, 1914–1918 (New York, 2019).

13 Masaryk to Beneš, 21 January 1919, in Korespondence T. G. Masaryk – Edvard Beneš 1918–1937 [Correspondence T.G. Masaryk – Edvard Beneš 1918–1937], eds. Dagmar Hájková, Richard Vašek, and Vlasta Quagliatová (Prague, 2013), 60.

14 Ibid., 59f.

15 The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover. Years of Adventure 1874–1920 (New York, 1952), 380.

16 An American in Europe at War and Peace. Hugh S. Gibson's Chronicles, 1918–1919, eds. Vivian Hux Ress and Jochen Böhler (Oldenburg, 2022), 379–80.

17 Konrád and Kučera, Paths out of the Apocalypse, 290.

18 Reports on the situation in the Republic, Archiv kanceláře prezidenta republiky [Archive of Presidential Office] (hereafter AKPR), fond (hereafter f.)KPR, D 9868, sign. 625, box 275.

19 Papers Relating to The Foreign Relations of the United States, 1919, Volume XII, Memorandum by the Secretary of Embassy at Paris (Gibson) for the Secretary of State, c. 1 February 1919, accessed 20 Aug 2020, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1919Parisv12/d75.

20 Zemský archiv Opava [Provincial Archive Opava], f. Policejní ředitelství Moravská Ostrava [Political Directory Märisch Ostrau], sign. 548, 465, box 622.

21 Beneš to Presidium of the Council of Ministers, 22 August 1919, in Alois Kocman et al., eds., Boj o směr vývoje Československého státu I., říjen 1918-červen 1919 [The struggle for the course of development of the Czechoslovak state] (Prague, 1965), 365.

22 “Angličtí a američtí hosté s kapitánem Voskou v Praze” [English and American guests with Captain Voska in Prague], Národní politika, 14 January 1919, 1.

23 An American in Europe at War and Peace, 177–83.

24 Barclay to Gregory 20 February 1919, in Suda Lorena Bane and Ralph Haswell Lutz, Organization of American Relief in Europe 1918–1919, (Stanford, 1943), 267.

25 Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1919, Volume II, 123C853/30, The Minister in Czechoslovakia (Crane) to the Acting Secretary of State, Prague, 15 June 1919, accessed 7 Aug. 2019, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1919v02/d41.

26 George Creel, How We Advertised America: The First Telling of the Amazing Story of the Committee on Public Information That Carried the Gospel of Americanism to Every Corner of the Globe (New York, 1920), 417ff.

27 “The Isolation of Our Friends. Disastrous Conditions in Bohemia (from our Special Correspondent, Prague January 24),” The Times, 28 January 1919, 7; “Sekretář presidenta Wilsona o naší situaci” [President Wilson's secretary on our situation], Národní listy, 1 February 1919, 2. “Wilsonův tajemník Mr. Creel o krutých vyživovacích poměrech v Československé republice” [Wilson's Secretary Mr. Creel on the harsh maintenance conditions in the Czechoslovak Republic], Venkov, 1 February 1919, 6.

28 “Zásobování města potravinami” [Supplying the city with food], Věstník obecní hlavního města Prahy [Municipal Bulletin of the City of Prague ] 2, no. 6 (20 March 1919): 86; “Úprava dávky chlebové” [Altering the Bread Ration], Věstník obecní hlavního města Prahy 26, no. 6 (20 March 1919): 96; Aprovisace obce pražské za války a po válce 1914–1922 [The Provision of the Municipality of Prague during and after the War of 1914–1922] (Prague, 1923), 195, 197, 201.

29 Keith Allen, “Sharing Scarcity: Bread Rationing and the First World War in Berlin, 1914–1923,” Journal of Social History 32, no. 2 (1998): 371–93; Hans Loewenfeld-Russ, Die Regelung der Volksernährung im Kriege, (Wien, 1926), 355.

30 Masaryk to Beneš, 23 January 1919 and 28 January 1919, in Korespondence T.G. Masaryk – Edvard Beneš, 64, 67.

31 H. S. Gibson to M. Gibson, 24 January 1919, in An American in Europe at War and Peace, 525.

32 Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1920, Vol. I, The Minister in Czechoslovakia (Crane) to the Secretary of State, 17 July 1920.

33 Michael R. Cude, “Wilsonian National Self-Determination and the Slovak Question during the Founding of Czechoslovakia, 1918–1921,” Diplomatic History 40, no. 1 (2016): 155–80.

34 Robert J. Kerner, “The Social Beginnings of the Czechoslovak Republic,” The Survey 43 (October 1919): 169–72.

35 Maureen Healy, Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire: Total War and Everyday Life in World War I (Cambridge, 2004), 255.

36 Ruth Crawford Mitchell (compiled by), Alice Garrigue Masaryk 1879–1966. Her Life as Recorded in Her Own Words and by Her Friends (Pittsburgh, 1980), 104; Memoir on Alice Masaryková by S.C. Molnárová, manuscript, Masarykův ústav a Archiv AV ČR [Masaryk Institute and Archive AV CR] (hereafter MÚA, AÚTGM), n. 8/96.

37 “The Czech Heart,” The Czechoslovak Review 3, no. 5 (May 1919): 121.

38 Vojenský historický archiv [Military Archives Prague] (hereafter VHA), f. České národní sdružení [Czech National Alliance] (hereafter ČNS), sign. Fond Alice Masarykové, 884–89.

39 Jaroslav Janko, Adresář sociálních zařízení Velké Prahy [Directory of Social Facilities in Greater Prague] (Prague 1919), 5; Mitchel, Alice Garrigue Masaryk 1879–1966, 104.

40 Cedar-Rapidské Listy (Cedar Rapids, Iowa), 24 July 1919, clipping in VHA, f. ČNS, sign. Fond Alice Masarykové, 889.

41 “Chicagský debut Jana Masaryka” [Jan Masaryk's Chicago debut], Svornost, 15 January 1920, clipping in MÚA, AÚTGM, f. Jan Masaryk, box 5.

42 American Relief Administration Bulletin, no. 1, 17 March 1919, 19; Rosenberg, Spreading the American Dream, 98–100; Gaines M. Foster, The Demands of Humanity. Army Medical Disaster Relief (Washington, DC, 1983), 80–81.

43 Tibor Glant, “Herbert Hoover and Hungary, 1918–1923,” Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies 8, no. 2 (Fall 2002): 95–109; Matthew Lloyd Adams, “Herbert Hoover and the Organization of the American Relief Effort in Poland (1919–1923),” European Journal of American Studies 4, no 2 (2009): https://journals.openedition.org/ejas/7627; Christopher Blackburn, “The Rebirth of Poland. American Humanitarianism After the Great War,” Studia Historyczne 57, no. 4 (2014): 521–39.

44 Ota Konrád, Nevyvážené vztahy: Československo a Rakousko 1918–1933 [An Unbalanced relationship: Czechoslovakia and Austria 1918–1933] (Prague, 2012), 70–71; Aliaksandr Piahanau, “‘Each Wagon of Coal Should Be Paid for with Territorial Concessions.’ Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and the Coal Shortage in 1918–21,” Diplomacy & Statecraft 34, no. 1 (2023): 86–116.

45 Hoover to Masaryk 13 December 1918, MÚA, AÚTGM, f. TGM, sign. R-36-11d, box 463; The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover. Years of Adventure 1874–1920, 393.

46 AKPR, sign. 211 D 7431; Masaryk's notes on his negotiations with Hutchinson, 10 July 1919, MÚA, AÚTGM, f. TGM, sign. R-36-11c, box 463.

47 Bane and Lutz, Organization of American Relief in Europe 1918–1919, 293–96

48 Hutchinson to Masaryk, 22 March 1919, MÚA, AÚTGM, f. TGM, sign. R-36-11c, box 463; “Potraviny z Ameriky budou!” [Food from America will come!], Národní listy, 25 March 1919, 4–5.

49 American Relief Administration Bulletin, no. 1, 17 March 1919, 4.

50 Československá péče o dítě [Czechoslovak Child Care] (Prague, 1920), 111–12, 117–19.

51 Československá péče o dítě, 120.

52 Tara Zahra, Kidnapped Souls: National Indifference and the Battle for Children in the Bohemian Lands, 1900–1948 (Ithaca, 2008).

53 Weekly reports about food distributions 1919–1920, Státní okresní archiv Havlíčkův Brod, [State District Archive] (hereafter SOkA), file 6, 8, 10; SOkA Rokycany, f. Okresní komitét Čsl. péče o dítě Rokycany, box 1.

54 Irwin, “Taming Total War,” 770–71.

55 Instrukce ARA komitétům Čs. péče o dítě, 31 March 1920, SOkA Havlíčkův Brod, f. Okresní komitét Čsl. péče o dítě v Ledči nad Sázavou, file 1.

56 Dagmar Hájková, “Naše česká věc”: Češi v Americe za první světové války [Our Czech Cause: Czech in America during the First World War (Prague, 2011), 35–36.

57 Reports on United Relief Action 1919, VHA, f. ČNS, Amerika, Varia, sign. 974–79, box 1; “Krach a aféra Voskovy obchodní společnosti a soudní řízení u obchod. soudu: Czechoslovak Commercial Corporation of America” [The collapse and affair of Voska's trading company and the court proceedings], Právo lidu, 30 August 1921, 7.

58 Zápis plenárního zasedání Čs. národní rady v Americe, [Minutes of the plenary session of the Czechoslovak National Council in America] Pittsburgh, 7 October 1919, VHA, f. Krajanské spolky v Americe [Compatriot societies in America], sign. 2; Slovenský národný archiv [Slovak National Archives], f. Slovenská liga v Americe [Slovak League in America], box 3.

59 Edgard Rickard, “Genesis and the Development of the Food Draft,” American Relief Administration Bulletin 2, no 2 (15 October 1920): 6.

60 Rickard, “Genesis and the development of the food draft,” 8.

61 “Vánoční telegram pres. Masaryka Čechoslovákům v Americe a nový podnik Mr. Herberta Hoovera” [Christmas telegram of president T. G. Masaryk to the Czechoslovak in America and new activity of Mr. Herbert Hoover], Venkov, 21 December 1919, 1–2.

62 “Potravinové dárky zAmeriky” [American food gifts], Národní listy, 12 February 1920, 3; „Potravinové dárky zAmeriky” Venkov, 12 February 1920, 4.

63 SOkA Havlíčkův Brod, f. Okresní komitét Čsl. péče o dítě v Ledči nad Sázavou, file 1.

64 Czechoslovak Ministry of Public Supply to Presidium of the Council of Ministers 21 September 1919, Národní archiv Praha [National Archives Prague], f. Presidium ministerské rady [Presidium of the Council of Ministers], box 3630.

65 “Naše vánoce a dárky z Ameriky” [Our Christmas and Gifts from America], Venkov, 18 November 1920, 5; “Vánoční balíky z Ameriky” [Christmas Packages from America ] Rudé právo, 22 November 1920, 6, “Vánoční dárky z Ameriky” [Christmas gifts from America], Venkov, 5 December 1920, 8.

66 Československá péče o dítě, 164.

67 “Sperrung der amerikanischen Hilfslagerhauser,” Prager Presse, 10 April 1921, 5.

68 Bane and Lutz, Organization of American Relief in Europe 1918–1919, 93–94.

69 “Y.M.C.A.,” Humoristické listy, 1 October 1920, 415; Josef Švéda, “Reprezentace ‘pravého Američana’ a Spojených států amerických v českých cestopisech od sedmdesátých let 19. století po první světovou válku” [Representations of the ‘true American’ and the United States of America in Czech travelogues from the 1870s to World War I], Česká literatura 63, č. 3 (2015): 359–88.

70 Irwin, Julia, Making the World Safe: The American Red Cross and a Nation's Humanitarian Awakening (Oxford, 2013), 145CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

Supplementary material: File

Hájková supplementary material 1

Hájková supplementary material
Download Hájková supplementary material 1(File)
File 127 KB
Supplementary material: File

Hájková supplementary material 2

Hájková supplementary material
Download Hájková supplementary material 2(File)
File 13.7 KB
Supplementary material: File

Hájková supplementary material 3

Hájková supplementary material
Download Hájková supplementary material 3(File)
File 19.2 KB