Humanitarian aid across the ocean: Argentine contributions to the relief of Europe during the Great War

Abstract

This chapter aims to offer a first overview of Argentine efforts to relieve the Old World during the Great War. It explores Argentina’s official stance towards humanitarianism and analyses the wartime humanitarian mobilisation of different social groups of Argentine society. It tackles the relief activities promoted by European residents as well as locals, and draw out moments of cooperation and tension between them; it seeks to identify the primary recipients of those humanitarian schemes as well as the donors’ motivations. It also draws attention to the relatively neglected tension between formal Argentine neutrality and Argentine society’s efforts to relieve suffering in wartorn Europe.