The Story of Henri Dunant — Founder of the "International Red Cross Society"

It was, on that day, a destiny decreed in the history of mankind, when an elegant gentleman stepped down from his carriage in the year 1859 and threw himself into the midst of the melee of Solferino. The man's name was Henri Dunant, and in that historic slaughter he endured hours that changed the course of his life: the successful young financier was transformed into an apostle of mercy.

Half a century has passed since then, and Dunant's name echoes in every corner of the world, for it was written for him to found the greatest world society for the service of mankind.

Dunant set out one day in haste, seeking an interview with Napoleon III, Emperor of France, who was at the head of a French army fighting in northern Italy, and he caught up with him at Solferino. On that day blood was flowing, spilled over seventy square miles of the plains of Lombardy, in one of the greatest massacres of history. King Victor Emmanuel II was at the head of an army of fifty thousand fighting men of the people of Piedmont; he had sworn to drive the Austrians out of Italy, and Louis Napoleon had come out to his aid with a hundred thousand French fighting men. As for the Austrians, they numbered a hundred and sixty thousand, commanded by the young Emperor Franz Joseph, then twenty-nine years of age.

When Dunant halted at the town of Castiglione behind the French lines, he kept watching the wounded coming back in long files, in wooden carts that jolted painfully. In the battle, which lasted fifteen hours, some forty-five thousand men fell dead, and most of them remained where they fell, with no one to care for them. The medical-service men in the armies of both sides were powerless to act, for they were not prepared for so great a number of casualties; every house and every place of worship in Castiglione became a hospital, and gangrene and tetanus spread among them frightfully.

Dunant could not bear to remain aloof. He forgot the mission for which he had come. This financier, thirty-one years of age, formed a battalion of three hundred men, soldiers and townsfolk, to rescue the wounded and care for them, and himself took command of it.

He made enemy and friend equal in his care, saying: "We are all brothers!" That cry ran through the whole town, and it was destined to run afterwards through the whole world. And when donations began to pour in upon him, he slipped away and vanished from sight.

Dunant was the descendant of a distinguished Swiss family of the middle ranks of the people, renowned for works of piety and charity. He received his education in the best Swiss schools, and afterwards entered the service of one of the banking houses of Switzerland.

When his period of training was over, he founded a company with a capital of a million francs to erect four flour mills in Algeria. But Dunant was negligent, and failed to obtain the concession for the water power for those mills. So he sought an interview with Louis Napoleon at Solferino to obtain that concession — but he did not succeed.

When he returned, he wrote describing the tragic aftermath of the battle of Solferino, and proposed a plan for the creation of societies of volunteers for relief work among all nations. This memoir was published in 1862 and stirred all Europe. Gustave Moynier, president of the Geneva Society for the Public Good, offered to form a committee to carry out what Dunant had called for. Dunant accepted this offer, and invited three men from among the leading citizens of Switzerland to join it. A committee was formed, called "the International Committee of Five" — the origin of the present International Red Cross Committee.

Bismarck was then drawing the plans for the series of wars that swept over Europe at that time. When Dunant sensed the approaching danger, he went forward and resolved to widen the scope of his project, and the "Committee of Five" summoned delegates from all the powers to meet in the city of Geneva. That was an act of extreme boldness — yet Dunant lost no time in setting out, in 1863, to tour all the capitals of Europe, and before three months had passed he had succeeded in persuading sixteen states to send their delegates. They met in the month of October of that year in Geneva, and agreement was reached upon the principles on which the International Red Cross Society rests.

Among the things Dunant asked was this: that a soldier, once fallen wounded in battle, should remain safe from all harm so long as he did not resist; that whoever found him, enemy or friend, should aid him; that all physicians volunteering for medical service should be secure from any attack; that no physician and no nurse should carry arms; and that all those attending to the service of the wounded should wear distinguishing badges upon their arms.

The Swiss flag, its colors reversed, was adopted as an international emblem in recognition of Switzerland's merit. Such is the origin of the device of the red cross on a white ground, and such was the birth of the greatest organized humanitarian work on the fields of battle.

Ten months later the Geneva Convention was signed at an official meeting convened by the government of Switzerland, and the number of states that signed that convention reached twelve. As for America, she did not sign it until eighteen years afterwards... And Dunant went on struggling for the fulfillment of his mission until he succeeded in spreading his cause in every land...

But another idea began to ferment in Dunant's mind after he had accomplished the founding of Red Cross societies in all the civilized nations of the world: namely, that the work of the Red Cross should not be confined to time of war alone, but should embrace all the calamities and disasters that occur in time of peace as well — such as earthquakes, floods, fires, and famines. This project was approved later on, and thanks to it the lives of millions of people have been saved. But the Geneva committee rejected it at the time. And in the year 1875 Dunant once more vanished from sight. No one knew where he had gone or how he lived. All that is known of him is that he disappeared for fifteen years, and it is believed that he lived under an assumed name. Then one day some of the children of the village of Heiden, among the villages of the Alps, told the village schoolmaster that they had seen a very old man with a black cap on his head and a long white beard, who used to watch them at play and speak to them with all tenderness. The young teacher, whose name was William Sonderegger, set about searching out the man's secret, and invited him to his house — and how great was his astonishment when it became clear to him that his guest was none other than Henri Dunant!

Not long afterwards an international congress of the Red Cross Society was held in Rome. William Sonderegger sent a message to the congress, to be read to the delegates: "The founder of the Red Cross is not dead, and he is in dire want." Dunant's name began once more to run through Europe, and gifts came pouring in upon the village of Heiden from all parts of the world. The Swiss Chamber of Deputies voted the man a grant, and coins were struck in his name. The Dowager Empress of Russia decreed him a pension for life; Prussia conferred upon him the Order of the Crown, Portugal the Order of Christ, and France the Cross of the Legion of Honor. In 1910, being then seventy-three years of age, Dunant received the Nobel Peace Prize. He revived once more, but money no longer had any value in his eyes. After paying the debts he owed to those of his creditors whose whereabouts were known, he gave what remained to the charitable societies. He went on living on five francs a day in his clean, sunny room in the paupers' hospital at Heiden, and died in 1910 at the age of eighty-two. His funeral was held without ceremony, as he had directed, and he was buried in the city of Zurich, where his Swiss countrymen keep watch over his grave and visit it at fitting seasons, to honor the memory of their great fellow citizen — that man of goodness in whom all the world has a share.