How the Red Cross was born

Five Geneva men — businessman Jean-Henri Dunant (pictured), jurist Gustave Moynier, general Henri Dufour, and doctors Louis Appia and Théodore Maunoir — meet on February 17 1863 and set up the International Committee for Relief to the Wounded, later to become the International Committee of the Red Cross. The idea was born on the evening of June 24 1859 when Dunant, 31, came upon the scene of a bloody battle in Solferino between the armies of imperial Austria and the Franco-Sardinian alliance. Some 40,000 men lay injured or dead on the battlefield. Dunant mobilised the civilians to provide assistance to the injured and sick soldiers, organised the purchase of needed materials and helped erect makeshift hospitals. He convinced the population to treat the wounded without regard to their side in the conflict as per the slogan “Tutti fratelli” (All are Brothers) coined by the women of nearby Castiglione delle Stiviere. Back in Switzerland, he published the book “A Memory of Solferino” and called for the creation of national relief societies to assist those wounded in war. The 1863 committee adopts the emblem of a red cross on white (the inverse of the Swiss flag). In 1864, 12 countries adopt the first Geneva Convention; a milestone in the history of humanity, offering care for the wounded, and defining medical services as “neutral” on the battlefield. Dunant receives the first Nobel Peace Prize (jointly with pacifist Frédéric Passy) in 1901