FRANCAISComité International de la Croix Rouge - History
1863-1869
-1863, Switzerland: The International Committee for Relief to the Wounded, renamed the International Committee of the Red Cross in 1875, is founded on 17 February 1863 by five prominent men from Geneva. The group's leader, Henry Dunant (1828-1910), is a businessman with interests in French Algeria. Setting out to negotiate a contract between his company, the Moulins de Mons-Djémila, and Napoleon III, he instead discovered an interest in humanitarianism after his journey took him through Solferino where Italian and Austrian troops clashed on 14 June 1859. His shock at the fate of those left to die on the battlefields led him to write a successful book, published three years later. Henry Dunant, also a member of the Evangelist Society, had previously been involved in other charities. In 1849 he founded the Young People's Christian Union, later to become a Universal Alliance and better known today as the YMCA (Young Men's Christian Alliance). The four other members of the International Committee for Relief to the Wounded come from varying backgrounds. Guillaume-Henri Darfour, a general in the Swiss Army, is renowned as a hero since the Sonderbund war in 1847: his role includes convincing military circles of the humanitarian project's necessity. Gustave Moynier is a business lawyer and, since 1858, the chairman of the Geneva Society for Public Welfare, a moral and philanthropic organisation set up in 1828. From 1864 to 1910, he is going to run and lead the ICRC. As for Louis Appia, a field surgeon at Solferino in 1859, he directed the Geneva Medical Society in 1861 and will treat victims of the Battle of Bezzecca, where Austrian troops clash with Giuseppe Garibaldi's forces in 1866. The final member, Théodore Maunoir, is also a surgeon. Under the banner of the Geneva Society for Public Welfare, the five men initially aim at defending their humanitarian project in Berlin before a charitable conference which is planned for September 1863… and eventually cancelled. Nevertheless, they continue their efforts to set up a voluntary medical corps capable of intervening on the battlefield. In October 1863 they finally manage to convince diplomats from all of the major European countries to attend an international conference on the matter.
-1864, Switzerland: The Committee launches the first Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field. Signed on 22 August 1864, the text only contains ten articles. It does not discourage war, nor does it encourage peace through disarmament. Instead, it focuses on improving combat conditions, even if this involves helping governmental armies. While similar projects had failed in the past, the Convention is signed because the drafting of soldiers means that European states are increasingly held responsible for the military’s health, unlike for career soldiers and mercenaries. The initiative is also supported by the public, more aware of soldiers’ suffering after new developments in communications and weapons technology increased casualties and invalidated more chivalric principles of warfare. For Gustave Moynier, providing relief to the wounded is also a communications exercise. According to him, activities in this area will increase public awareness of the horrors of war, making it impossible for civilians to remain ignorant and, therefore, complacent. Nevertheless, the Geneva Committee is unable to reach an agreement on whether to set up a neutral international volunteer corps capable of intervening on the battlefield. The selection process therefore falls to governments, and authorised volunteers are given revocable licenses. Meanwhile, the famous British nurse, Florence Nightingale, expresses serious doubts as to Henry Dunant’s programme. In her opinion, relief to the war-wounded is a public rather than a private sector exercise. She considers that national Red Cross societies will merely support conflicts and enable governments to avoid taking responsibility for their soldiers. The historian John Hutchinson goes even further and claims that such activities are tantamount to encouraging “total warfare” because they combine civilian and military relief. Oddly enough, the armed forces are dubious too. They fear volunteers would be less skilled than the military’s internal medical units, especially women, who are praised by civilian groups for having more time to dedicate to charitable activities.
-From 1865, Switzerland: After Germany, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Denmark, and France set up national societies in 1864, the Red Cross movement gains momentum in Europe despite opposition from competing projects by Ferdinando Palasciano and Henry Arrault in 1861. The latter, who had planned to use a black flag and white scarf as his emblem, accuses Henry Dunant of imitating him. In newspaper articles published on 3 August 1865 in L’Economiste français and 8 September 1866 in La Presse, Henry Arrault claims authorship of the Geneva Conventions. During a public lecture at the Pontaniane Academy in Naples on 27 December 1863, similar claims were made by Ferdinando Palasciano, who was later to become a senator in 1876. But the idea of the Red Cross remains Swiss, inspired by the principles of neutrality and universality. To preserve the Geneva Committee from nationalist concerns, for instance, joint membership is forbidden, although Guillaume-Henri Dufour breaks this rule and joins the Swiss Red Cross, set up in 1866. And while the movement has Protestant origins, it also spreads to Orthodox countries (Greece in 1865 and Russia in 1867), Muslim regions (the Ottoman Empire in 1865) and Catholic states (France, Spain and Italy from 1864, Austria and Bavaria in 1866, and the Vatican in 1868). To recognise Red Crosses after their country ratify the Geneva Convention, however, the Committee reveals the bias of Western Christian nations that see themselves as superior to “exotic” developing countries whose people are considered unable to respect “codes of conduct” during war. Thus the institution rebuffs Chinese and Korean initiatives to set up national societies. An investor in Algeria, Henry Dunant himself is a firm believer in the colonial venture, not to mention crusades: he supports the idea of a Jewish settlement in Palestine, and drafts in 1866 an international project (projet de société internationale pour la rénovation de l’Orient) to establish under French protection a universal company (compagnie universelle) in the Middle East. Exiled to Paris in 1867, he still advocates the colonisation of Palestine with the support of Württemberg protestant fanatics who want to move to the Holy Land and form an obscure “Temple Council”. In this, Henry Dunant is inspired by King Cyrus, the founder of the Persian Empire, and Napoleon III, that he compares to Charlemagne to revive the Holy Roman Empire.
-1866-1869, Germany: With free access to post, telegraph and rail services, the Prussian Red Cross successfully carries out its first mission during a war with Austria in 1866. Prior to the conflict, volunteers were stationed near the battlefield and placed directly under army supervision to avoid giving away military secrets. Their efficiency contrasts with the relief society set up by the Austrians in April 1859, two months before the battle of Solferino. This organisation is not ready for the war and prefers to evacuate its surgeons instead of treating wounded soldiers at Sadowa in July 1866. Moreover, the Austrians pay no respect to the international humanitarian law and they imprison Prussian medical doctors. It is the military defeat that convinces the government in Vienna to establish a real Red Cross and to sign the Geneva Convention at the end of the year. By comparison, the German Army is much quicker to realise that there are many advantages in using civilian doctors. According to letters written by the surgeon Theodor Billroth from military hospitals in Wissembourg and Mannheim in 1870, the Prussian Red Cross has serious competition from the Order of Malta. Nevertheless, it quickly becomes the only official humanitarian partner of the German government, which names three commissioners to monitor the activities of the society. Its position is reinforced when the German states reunite. The organisation is given “private company” status, and the six national societies and their 250,000 members are brought together under a central committee in Berlin in line with a ruling passed in 1869. This differs to the federal model favoured by the Austrian Red Cross. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, the German organisation is completely integrated into the army; the title of the Prussian chapter’s monthly bulletin, for instance, is Kriegerheil (“Hail, soldier”). According to the given division of labour, a new medical military department evacuates wounded soldiers from the battlefield, while civilian members of the Red Cross take charge of hospitals away from the frontline.
-From 1867, Switzerland: The First International Conference of the Red Cross takes place in Paris and confirms Geneva as permanent headquarters of the International Committee for Relief to the Wounded, despite attempts by French delegates to have them moved to France. Meanwhile, Henry Dunant is implicated in a financial scandal at the Crédit Genevois, a bank where he sat on the board of directors and to which he sold his quarries in Felfela, Algeria. Accused of dishonesty, embezzlement and conflicts of interest, he is forced to resign from the Committee and replaced by Edmond Favre, a Swiss Colonel. Actually, explains Angela Bennett, its Algerian investments constituted only 1% of the assets of the Crédit Genevois, so they cannot be blamed for the bankruptcy of a bank with reserves of CHF 25 million. But Henry Dunant is also suspected of being a freemason and a homosexual. As a result, he has to flee to Paris, where he lives with very little means and helps the president of the French Red Cross, Count Emmanuel de Flavigny, to escape the Commune in 1871. Involved in pacifist movements, Henry Dunant still tries to launch an international and universal humanitarian organisation for the armed forces, the Œuvre internationale et universelle d’humanité en faveur des armées de terre et de mer, which continues to use the Red Cross emblem despite protests by Gustave Moynier. On returning to live in Heiden, Eastern Switzerland, in 1887, Henry Dunant will eventually be re-discovered by a German journalist and awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1901. However, fearing the Crédit Genevois would claim his earnings, he will not dare to travel to Oslo to collect the prize. Instead, he will send a friend, the Norwegian Colonel Hans Daae, who will subsequently bank the cheque in his name. Due to the personal animosity between Henry Dunant and Gustave Moynier (the latter lacking the charisma of the former), the Red Cross will only celebrate officially its founder on the hundredth anniversary of his birth, in 1928.
-1868, France: Count Charles Marie Augustin de Goyon (1803-1870), a senator, is named president of the Society for relief to wounded army and navy servicemen (Société de secours aux blessés militaires des armées de terre et de mer). He replaces General Raymond de Montesquiou, Duke of Fezensac (1784-1867), who had first held the position and who fought alongside Emperor Napoleon I, before swearing allegiance to King Louis XVIII, taking part in the conquest of Algeria and becoming Louis-Philippe d’Orléans’ ambassador to Madrid. At this point, the French Red Cross only exists on paper, given its almost complete lack of operational capacities. Although the organisation is given official approval in a decree passed in 1866, it has terrible relations with military personnel. The army’s medical services does not want competition from civilian volunteers. Only with the help of Geneva-based General Guillaume-Henri Dufour (under whom Emperor Napoleon III served) does the French Red Cross manage to obtain recognition from the French army.
-1869, Germany: At the Second International Conference of the Red Cross, held in Berlin from 22 to 27 April 1869, delegates decide that national societies could also be called on in natural disasters and civilian emergencies. This would allow them to remain active in peacetime and be more reactive during wartime. Meanwhile, the Geneva Committee, whose five members are not paid, hires its first employee in May 1869 thanks to financial contributions from national societies, even though the latter have no seats on the board of the institution. As defender of the principles of the Red Cross movement, the organisation also begins publishing a very neutrally worded tri-monthly bulletin in October 1869.
