The Louvain Library and US Ambition in Interwar Belgium

Abstract

This article analyzes the ordeal that became the 'Louvain Library Controversy' in order to demonstrate competing visions of postwar memory and reconstruction that emerged in the 1920s. As a country trying to mediate between the claims of its larger neighbors (Germany, France, and Britain), Belgium provides an excellent window into the climate of postwar Europe and US intervention. I argue that the controversies that surrounded the Louvain Library reconstruction reflect three main themes that plagued European-US relations in the 1920s: first, US pretensions as Europe's cultural protector; second, US economic power over debt and reparation questions; and last, the question of reconciliation in the wake of war. For Belgium and other European nations, the experience of being the object of aid for the United States of America led to a reassertion of sovereignty and autonomy in the face of external interference, exposing the gaps between Americans' assumptions about their roles and responsibilities in Europe and Europeans' sense of their own role in rebuilding their world. For Americans, the controversy demonstrated the perils of US 'generosity' and its price in postwar Europe.

Interwar Internationalism and the Rebuilding of the Catholic University of Louvain Library (1914–1928)

“…Tammy Proctor examines Louvain through the lens of diplomatic history, analyzing the manner by which the library fits within the context of the wider relationship between Europe and the United States during the interwar period of reconstruction. 10 These histories don't fully address the ways the Louvain project intersected with the interwar internationalist movement or consider the motivation of the CEIP and Butler to support the building of the new library. Schivelbusch provides some background description of the Carnegie Endowment and Butler's early involvement with the international peace movement, while also introducing Butler as, "the spiritual leader of American plutocracy" in a quote from Upton Sinclair.11 Proctor also quotes Schivelbusch's description of Butler while tying his rhetoric regarding the international role of America to Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points speech.12 As pointed out by David Clinton, however, Butler "had no great admiration for either Wilson or his works" despite Butler's support for US ratification of the Treaty of Versailles and promotion of US engagement with the League of Nations.…”