page_title: Comité National de Secours et d'Alimentation
section_title: Evaluation
hierarchical_section_title: Comité National de Secours et d'Alimentation / Evaluation
caption_attribution_description: Nederlands: Het driemanschap dat gevormd werd om de Belgische bevolking te helpen ten tijde van de Eerste Wereldoorlog. op de aanzichtkaart staan: de Villalobar, Brand Whitlock en Maurits van Vollenhoven English: The triumvirate that helped the Belgian people during the First World War. From left to right: de Villalobar, Brand Whitlock and Maurits van Vollenhoven.
context_page_description: The Comité National de Secours et d'Alimentation was a relief organization created in 1914 to distribute humanitarian aid to civilians in German-occupied Belgium during World War I. It was directed by the Belgian financier Émile Francqui. The CNSA acted as the network by which the aid brought in by the international Commission for Relief in Belgium could be distributed within Belgium itself.
context_section_description: The work of the CNSA during the war was considered extremely successful by contemporaries and modern historians alike. By providing a network of food distribution, the CNSA and CRB managed to avoid a major famine in Belgium during the occupation. Nevertheless, although the CRB and CNSA were part of the same network, the CRB criticized the CNSA, holding it responsible for occasional thefts of food by the Germans and for providing inadequate security for the shipments. The Belgian arm, however, felt under undue pressure from the CRB. In 1916, Francqui even petitioned the British to allow the CNSA to take full charge of the international network away from the CRB, although this appeal was dismissed because of the precarious position CNSA held within the occupied country. Nevertheless, relations between the two bodies remained generally good.
  The Committee also played an important political role. By providing an alternative supply of food, the CNSA prevented the German administration of Belgium from being able to use food as a bargaining tool to force Belgians to work in war industries and contributed to the passive resistance movement within occupied Belgium. However, the CNSA and CRB's activities meant that the Germans benefitted from having seven million Belgians and two million Frenchmen in their territory fed and consequently did not face major food riots or other disruption that might have arisen if the Germans had had to feed the population of the occupied territories. The Germans also exploited their deal agreeing to give impunity to CNSA food shipments by seizing food produced in Belgium.
  The Belgian government in exile supported the CNSA, which they hoped, in the words of the Minister Michel Levie, would become an "underground parliament" and fulfill the day-to-day running of the Belgian state which the occupation made impossible for the official government to carry out. Historians have also described the organisation of the CNSA, with its central committee and local networks, and its activities such as providing unemployment benefits to Belgian workers in 1917, as echoing those of an official government in peacetime while also serving as a symbol of national unity.
caption: Postcard depicting the three patrons of the CNSA who were all ambassadors of neutral countries to Belgium: Brand Whitlock (United States); the Marques of Villalobar (Spain); and Maurits van Vollenhoven (Netherlands).
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