Jean-Henri Dunant was born on 8 May 1828 in Geneva to a middle-class Calvinist family. His early initiatives included participating in the creation of the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) in 1852 and the World Alliance of YMCAs in 1855.He was employed by the private bank Lullin et Sautter and in 1853 became involved in projects to develop farmland in Algeria. In June 1859, because of financial difficulties linked to these enterprises, he decided to appeal directly to Napoleon III. However, the emperor was in the field directing a military campaign against the Austrian army in northern Italy. Dunant therefore set out for Italy with the intention of putting his complaints against French colonial bureaucracy to the sovereign.
The turning point: Solferino
Dunant was deeply shocked by the sight of the battlefield on 24 June 1859, where he witnessed suffering, blood and death. The clash between the French and Sardinian forces on one side, and the Austrian army on the other, had been fierce. The casualties were staggering: 40,000 dead and wounded. The medical services were totally overwhelmed: there was just one surgeon for every 1,000 men, the stretcher bearers were poorly trained and boxes of medicines and bandages left at the rear never reached the front lines.
The church in Castiglione was full of dying soldiers, the floor was covered in blood and the suffocating smell of gangrene filled the air. His Algerian concerns were forgotten. The destiny of Dunant was cast. His overriding concern from this point on was to assist wounded soldiers, without discrimination, to the cry of “Tutti fratelli” (we are all brothers).
The “Committee of Five”
On his return to Geneva “as if moved, possessed by a superior force and driven by divine inspiration”, Dunant wrote A Memory of Solferino. The book was published in 1862. It stirred people’s conscience and was immensely popular, prompting praise from all quarters. One of his admirers was Gustave Moynier, lawyer and president of the Société genevoise d’utilité publique (Geneva society for public welfare), formed by members of the liberal protestant elite. Moynier realized that Dunant’s ideas would change the plight of the victims of armed conflict. He put his expertise at the disposal of Dunant and proposed that a commission study and disseminate the ideas of the “Good Samaritan”. It was formed by five outstanding personalities: Dunant and Moynier, physicians Louis Appia and Théodore Maunoir and General Guillaume-Henri Dufour.
When the commission convened for the first time on 17 February 1863, it decreed itself a permanent international committee. Its members believed in the longevity of the embryonic initiative and intended to extend it beyond the narrow boundaries of their city. This decision marked the start of the Red Cross.
The three principal intuitions
The “Committee of Five”, the forerunner of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), gave form to Dunant’s three main intuitions: 1. the neutral status of victims and health personnel and material; 2. the creation of national committees to assist the wounded, the future National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies; 3. the establishment of a space protected by law in war, which would develop into international humanitarian law.
An international conference was called on 26 October 1863 in Geneva. On the appointed day, delegates from 14 governments attended the conference, which “desirous of coming to the aid of the wounded should the Military Medical Services prove inadequate”, adopted the founding charter of the Red Cross and invited all countries to set up committees and relief societies.
It now remained to incorporate, in international law, rules governing a neutral, humanitarian space on the battlefield. This was the purpose of the Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field, the original Geneva Convention, adopted on 22 August 1864.
With this convention, the Diplomatic Conference adopted the “red cross on a white ground”, the flag of the Swiss Confederation with the colours inverted, as the distinctive sign of hospitals, ambulances, evacuation vehicles and neutral personnel.
The Red Cross ideal was set to conquer the world. While the visionary spirit of Dunant has never ceased to inspire humanitarian action, the task of organizing the Movement and codifying humanitarian law was undertaken by the lawyer Moynier and the physician Frédéric Ferrière and their colleagues in the ICRC and National Societies.
The Nobel Peace Prize and the rehabilitation of Dunant’s reputation
Embroiled in a financial scandal that he was unable to avert and convicted of fraudulent bankruptcy by the Genevan courts, Dunant was forced to resign from his position in the institution in 1867. For twenty years, he wandered throughout Europe, ruined and harbouring dreams, projects and resentment, without ever finding peace of mind or receiving the forgiveness of his compatriots.
In 1887, he took refuge in Heiden, in the canton of Appenzell Outer Rhodes, in eastern Switzerland. An article published in Über Land und Meer (over land and sea) in 1895 catapulted him back into the public eye. He was awarded the first Nobel Peace Prize in 1901, which he shared with the French pacifist Frédéric Passy and which tardily rehabilitated his reputation .
From then on, the work of the patriarch with the white beard and black hat is known throughout the world. Henry Dunant died on 30 October 1910, at the age of 82, in the hospice in Heiden. His ashes were interred at Sihlfeld cemetery in Zurich.
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