Until the middle of the 19th century, war was hell.
Okay, war is still hell, but did you know that before the Red Cross there were no organized nursing systems for casualties and no safe, protected institutions to treat men wounded on the battlefield?
We are so familiar with the American Red Cross that it’s hard to believe that the concept was first actually conceived of and developed in Europe. Americans are taught that Clara Barton started the Red Cross in response to the Civil War. And she did, but that was five years after a Swiss businessman- Jean-Henri Dunant- had the original idea and worked tirelessly to execute it.  Of course, in the middle of the 1800′s, Europe had quite a bit of warfare going on. The Crimean War, the Austro-Prussian War, the Franco Prussian War and lots of general mayhem on the part of the Russians.
By the sheer accident of a poorly timed business appointment, Jean-Henri Dunant  witnessed the Battle of Solferino, during the Austro-Sardinian War. On June 24, 1859, about 40,000 soldiers on both sides died or were left wounded on the field. The businessman was shocked by the terrible aftermath of the battle, the suffering of the wounded soldiers, and the near-total lack of medical attendance and basic care.
Dunant abandoned the original intent of his trip, which had been to meet with Napoleon III to solicit help with his business problems in Algeria. According to Pierre Boissier: History of the International Committee of the Red Cross, “ for several days he devoted himself to helping with the treatment and care for the wounded. He succeeded in organizing an overwhelming level of relief assistance by motivating the local villagers to aid without discrimination.”
Having answered the immediate need, Dunant returned home, but he could not get the horrendous results of warfare out of his mind and he set to work to develop a remedy…

Back home in Geneva, he wrote a book, A Memory of Solferino,  which he published with his own money in 1862. He sent copies to leading political and military figures throughout Europe. Not only did he vividly describe his experiences in Solferino in 1859, he explicitly advocated the formation of national voluntary relief organizations to help nurse wounded soldiers in the case of war. He also called for the development of international treaties to guarantee the protection of neutral medics and field hospitals for soldiers wounded on the battlefield.

On February 9, 1863, Jean-Henri Dunant formed  the “Committee of the Five” –himself and four other men from Geneva with experience in health, war and public service– as an investigatory commission of the Geneva Society for Public Welfare. The purpose was to examine the feasibility of Dunant’s ideas and to organize an international conference about their possible implementation. The members of this committee were Gustave Moynier, lawyer and chairman of the Geneva Society for Public Welfare; physician Louis Appia, who had significant experience working as a field surgeon; Appia’s friend and colleague Théodore Maunoir, from the Geneva Hygiene and Health Commission; Guillaume-Henri Dufour, general of great renown and Dunant himself. Eight days later, the five men decided to rename the committee the “International Committee for Relief to the Wounded”. In October of 1863, the Committee organized an international conference held in Geneva to develop possible measures to improve medical services on the battlefield. The conference was attended by 36 individuals: eighteen official delegates from national governments, six delegates from other non-governmental organizations, seven non-official foreign delegates, and the five original members of the International Committee. The attending countries included Austria, France, Italy, The Netherlands, Prussia, the Russian Empire, Spain, Sweden-Norway and the United Kingdom, in short most of the “heavy hitters” of the day.

The most significant of the proposals adopted by the conference were:

• The foundation of national relief societies for wounded soldiers;
• Neutrality and protection for wounded soldiers;
• The utilization of volunteer forces for relief assistance on the battlefield;
• The organization of additional conferences to enact these concepts in legally binding international treaties;
• The introduction of a common distinctive protection symbol for medical personnel in the field, namely a white armlet bearing a red cross

It was the birth of the symbol now known around the globe.