The Red Cross the facts

The Red Cross the facts Part 1. A Article written in May 2007

The International Red Cross & Red Crescent Movement is an international humanitarian movement whose stated mission is to protect human life & health, to ensure respect for the human being, & to prevent & alleviate human suffering, without any discrimination based on nationality, race, religious beliefs, class or political opinions. The often-heard term International Red Cross is actually a misnomer, as no official organization as such exists bearing that name. In reality, the movement consists of several distinct organizations that are legally independent from each other, but are united within the Movement through common basic principles, objectives, symbols, statutes, & governing organs. The Movement's parts: The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is a private humanitarian institution founded in 1863 in Geneva, Switzerland. Its 25-member committee has a unique authority under international humanitarian law to protect the life & dignity of the victims of international & internal armed conflicts.
The International Federation of Red Cross & Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) was founded in 1919 & today it coordinates activities between the 185 National Red Cross & Red Crescent Societies within the Movement. On an international level, the Federation leads & organizes, in close cooperation with the National Societies, relief assistance missions responding to large-scale emergencies. The International Federation Secretariat is based in Geneva, Switzerland.
National Red Cross & Red Crescent Societies exist in nearly every country in the world. Currently 185 National Societies are recognized by the ICRC & admitted as full members of the Federation. Each entity works in its home country according to the principles of international humanitarian law & the statutes of the international Movement. Depending on their specific circumstances & capacities, National Societies can take on additional humanitarian tasks that are not directly defined by international humanitarian law or the mandates of the international Movement.

Henry Dunant, author of "A Memory of Solferino".Up until the middle of the 19th century, there were no organized & well-established army nursing systems for casualties & no safe & protected institutions to accommodate & treat those who were wounded on the battlefield. In June 1859, the Swiss businessman Henry Dunant traveled to Italy to meet French emperor Napoléon III with the intention of discussing difficulties in conducting business in Algeria, at that time occupied by France. When he arrived in the small town of Solferino on the evening of June 24, he witnessed the Battle of Solferino, an engagement in the Austro-Sardinian War. In a single day, about 40,000 soldiers on both sides died or were left wounded on the field. Henry Dunant was shocked by the terrible aftermath of the battle, the suffering of the wounded soldiers, & the near-total lack of medical attendance & basic care. He completely abandoned the original intent of his trip & for several days he devoted himself to helping with the treatment & care for the wounded. He succeeded in organizing an overwhelming level of relief assistance by motivating the local population to aid without discrimination. Back in his home in Geneva, he decided to write a book entitled A Memory of Solferino which he published with his own money in 1862. He sent copies of the book to leading political & military figures throughout Europe. In addition to penning a vivid description of 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. In addition, he called for the development of international treaties to guarantee the neutrality & protection of those wounded on the battlefield as well as medics & field hospitals.

Original document of the first Geneva Convention, 1864.On February 9, 1863 in Geneva, Henry Dunant founded the "Committee of the Five" (together with four other leading figures from well-known Geneva families) as an investigatory commission of the Geneva Society for Public Welfare. Their aim was to examine the feasibility of Dunant's ideas & to organize an international conference about their possible implementation. The members of this committee, aside from Dunant himself, were Gustave Moynier, lawyer & chairman of the Geneva Society for Public Welfare; physician Louis Appia, who had significant experience working as a field surgeon; Appia's friend & colleague Théodore Maunoir, from the Geneva Hygiene & Health Commission; & Guillaume-Henri Dufour, a Swiss Army general of great renown. Eight days later, the five men decided to rename the committee to the "International Committee for Relief to the Wounded". In October (26-29) 1863, the international conference organized by the committee was held in Geneva to develop possible measures to improve medical services on the battle field. 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, & the five members of the International Committee. The states represented by official delegates were Baden, Bavaria, France, the United Kingdom of Great Britain & Ireland, Hanover, Hesse, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, Prussia, Russia, Saxony, Sweden, & Spain. Among the proposals written in the final resolutions of the conference, adopted on October 29, 1863, were:

The foundation of national relief societies for wounded soldiers;
Neutrality & 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.

Memorial commemorating the first use of the Red Cross symbol in an armed conflict during the Battle of Dybbøl (Denmark) in 1864; jointly erected in 1989 by the national Red Cross societies of Denmark & Germany.Only one year later, the Swiss government invited the governments of all European countries, as well as the United States, Brazil, & Mexico, to attend an official diplomatic conference. Sixteen countries sent a total of twenty-six delegates to Geneva. On August 22, 1864, the conference adopted the first Geneva Convention "for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field". Representatives of 12 states & kingdoms signed the convention: Baden, Belgium, Denmark, France, Hesse, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Prussia, Switzerland, Spain, & Württemberg. The convention contained ten articles, establishing for the first time legally binding rules guaranteeing neutrality & protection for wounded soldiers, field medical personnel, & specific humanitarian institutions in an armed conflict. Furthermore, the convention defined two specific requirements for recognition of a national relief society by the International Committee:

The national society must be recognized by its own national government as a relief society according to the convention, &
The national government of the respective country must be a state party to the Geneva Convention.
Directly following the establishment of the Geneva Convention, the first national societies were founded in Belgium, Denmark, France, Oldenburg, Prussia, Spain, & Württemberg. Also in 1864, Louis Appia & Charles van de Velde, a captain of the Dutch Army, became the first independent & neutral delegates to work under the symbol of the Red Cross in an armed conflict. Three years later in 1867, the first International Conference of National Aid Societies for the Nursing of the War Wounded was convened.

Also in 1867, Henry Dunant was forced to declare bankruptcy due to business failures in Algeria, partly because he had neglected his business interests during his tireless activities for the International Committee. Controversy surrounding Dunant's business dealings & the resulting negative public opinion, combined with an ongoing conflict with Gustave Moynier, led to Dunant's expulsion from his position as a member & secretary. He was charged with fraudulent bankruptcy & a warrant for his arrest was issued. Thus, he was forced to leave Geneva & never returned to his home city. In the following years, national societies were founded in nearly every country in Europe. In 1876, the committee adopted the name "International Committee of the Red Cross" (ICRC), which is still its official designation today. Five years later, the American Red Cross was founded through the efforts of Clara Barton. More & more countries signed the Geneva Convention & began to respect it in practice during armed conflicts. In a rather short period of time, the Red Cross gained huge momentum as an internationally respected movement, & the national societies became increasingly popular as a venue for volunteer work.

When the first Nobel Peace Prize was awarded in 1901, the Norwegian Nobel Committee opted to give it jointly to Henry Dunant & Frédéric Passy, a leading international pacifist. More significant than the honor of the prize itself, the official congratulation from the International Committee of the Red Cross marked the overdue rehabilitation of Henry Dunant & represented a tribute to his key role in the formation of the Red Cross. Dunant died nine years later in the small Swiss health resort of Heiden. Only two months earlier his long-standing adversary Gustave Moynier had also died, leaving a mark in the history of the Committee as its longest-serving president ever.

In 1906, the 1864 Geneva Convention was revised for the first time. One year later, the Hague Convention X, adopted at the Second International Peace Conference in The Hague, extended the scope of the Geneva Convention to naval warfare. Shortly before the beginning of the First World War in 1914, 50 years after the foundation of the ICRC & the adoption of the first Geneva Convention, there were already 45 national relief societies throughout the world. The movement had extended itself beyond Europe & North America to Central & South America (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Mexico, Peru, El Salvador, Uruguay, Venezuela), Asia (the Republic of China, Japan, Korea, Siam), & Africa (Republic of South Africa).

The ICRC during World War One

With the outbreak of World War I, the ICRC found itself confronted with enormous challenges which it could only handle by working closely with the national Red Cross societies. Red Cross nurses from around the world, including the United States & Japan, came to support the medical services of the armed forces of the European countries involved in the war. On October 15, 1914, immediately after the start of the war, the ICRC set up its International Prisoners-of-War (POW) Agency, which had about 1,200 mostly volunteer staff members by the end of 1914. By the end of the war, the Agency had transferred about 20 million letters & messages, 1.9 million parcels, & about 18 million Swiss francs in monetary donations to POWs of all affected countries. Furthermore, due to the intervention of the Agency, about 200,000 prisoners were exchanged between the warring parties, released from captivity & returned to their home country. The organizational card index of the Agency accumulated about 7 million records from 1914 to 1923, each card representing an individual prisoner or missing person. The card index led to the identification of about 2 million POWs & the ability to contact their families. The complete index is on loan today from the ICRC to the International Red Cross & Red Crescent Museum in Geneva. The right to access the index is still strictly restricted to the ICRC.

During the entire war, the ICRC monitored warring parties’ compliance with the Geneva Conventions of the 1907 revision & forwarded complaints about violations to the respective country. When chemical weapons were used in this war for the first time in history, the ICRC vigorously protested against this new type of warfare. Even without having a mandate from the Geneva Conventions, the ICRC tried to ameliorate the suffering of civil populations. In territories that were officially designated as "occupied territories," the ICRC could assist the civilian population on the basis of the Hague Convention's "Laws & Customs of War on Land" of 1907. This convention was also the legal basis for the ICRC's work for prisoners of war. In addition to the work of the International Prisoner-of-War Agency as described above this included inspection visits to POW camps. A total of 524 camps throughout Europe were visited by 41 delegates from the ICRC until the end of the war.

Between 1916 & 1918, the ICRC published a number of postcards with scenes from the POW camps. The pictures showed the prisoners in day-to-day activities such as the distribution of letters from home. The intention of the ICRC was to provide the families of the prisoners with some hope & solace & to alleviate their uncertainties about the fate of their loved ones. After the end of the war, the ICRC organized the return of about 420,000 prisoners to their home countries. In 1920, the task of repatriation was handed over to the newly founded League of Nations, which appointed the Norwegian diplomat & scientist Fridtjof Nansen as its "High Commissioner for Repatriation of the War Prisoners." His legal mandate was later extended to support & care for war refugees & displaced persons when his office became that of the League of Nations "High Commissioner for Refugees." Nansen, who invented the Nansen passport for stateless refugees & was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1922, appointed two delegates from the ICRC as his deputies.

A year before the end of the war, the ICRC received the 1917 Nobel Peace Prize for its outstanding wartime work. It was the only Nobel Peace Prize awarded in the period from 1914 to 1918. In 1923, the Committee adopted a change in its policy regarding the selection of new members. Until then, only citizens from the city of Geneva could serve in the Committee. This limitation was expanded to include Swiss citizens. As a direct consequence of World War I, an additional protocol to the Geneva Convention was adopted in 1925 which outlawed the use of suffocating or poisonous gases & biological agents as weapons. Four years later, the original Convention was revised & the second Geneva Convention "relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War" was established. The events of World War I & the respective activities of the ICRC significantly increased the reputation & authority of the Committee among the international community & led to an extension of its competencies.

As early as in 1934, a draft proposal for an additional convention for the protection of the civil population during an armed conflict was adopted by the International Red Cross Conference. Unfortunately, most governments had little interest in implementing this convention, & it was thus prevented from entering into force before the beginning of World War II.

The ICRC & World War Two
The legal basis of the work of the ICRC during World War II were the Geneva Conventions in their 1929 revision. The activities of the Committee were similar to those during World War I: visiting & monitoring POW camps, organizing relief assistance for civilian populations, & administering the exchange of messages regarding prisoners & missing persons. By the end of the war, 179 delegates had conducted 12,750 visits to POW camps in 41 countries. The Central Information Agency on Prisoners-of-War (Zentralauskunftsstelle für Kriegsgefangene) had a staff of 3,000, the card index tracking prisoners contained 45 million cards, & 120 million messages were exchanged by the Agency. One major obstacle was that the Nazi-controlled German Red Cross refused to cooperate with the Geneva statutes including blatant violations such as the deportation of Jews from Germany & the mass murders conducted in the concentration camps run by the German government. Moreover, two other main parties to the conflict, the Soviet Union & Japan, were not party to the 1929 Geneva Conventions & were not legally required to follow the rules of the conventions. Thus, other countries were not bound to follow the Conventions regarding their prisoners in return.

During the war, the ICRC failed to obtain an agreement with Nazi Germany about the treatment of detainees in concentration camps, & it eventually abandoned applying pressure in order to avoid disrupting its work with POWs. The ICRC also failed to develop a response to reliable information about the extermination camps & the mass killing of European Jews. This is still considered the greatest failure of the ICRC in its history. After November 1943, the ICRC achieved permission to send parcels to concentration camp detainees with known names & locations. Because the notices of receipt for these parcels were often signed by other inmates, the ICRC managed to register the identities of about 105,000 detainees in the concentration camps & delivered about 1.1 million parcels, primarily to the camps Dachau, Buchenwald, Ravensbrück, & Sachsenhausen.

Another example of great humanitarian spirit was Friedrich Born (1903-1963), an ICRC delegate in Budapest who saved the lives of about 11,000 to 15,000 Jewish people in Hungary. Marcel Junod (1904-1961), a physician from Geneva, was another famous delegate during the Second World War. An account of his experiences, which included being one of the first foreigners to visit Hiroshima after the atomic bomb was dropped, can be found in the book Warrior without Weapons.

In 1944, the ICRC received its second Nobel Peace Prize. As in World War I, it received the only Peace Prize awarded during the main period of war, 1939 to 1945. At the end of the war, the ICRC worked with national Red Cross societies to organize relief assistance to those countries most severely affected. In 1948, the Committee published a report reviewing its war-era activities from September 1, 1939 to June 30, 1947. Since January 1996, the ICRC archive for this period has been open to academic & public research.

Part 2 of this article on the Red Cross

Here are some more sites, there are books & articles on the subjects in many internet places, or internet book shops, bookstores, at the bottom, are lists of which were the worst regimes of the past few centuries.

An Index with links to almost all our sites.

Which regimes killed the most people in the 19th Century, find out here,

A site on the El Nino Famines that killed 10s of millions of Indians, & Chinese & others in the 19th Century

A site stating which ideal killed the most in the 20th Century, the answer is royalism, & Fascism, & that the left saved a billion people in the 20th Century

The Highland Clearances & it's full terribleness

The story of the 2 major uprisings in Warsaw in World War Two

A site on the Belgian Congo, & how the king of that land killed 10s of millions of Congolese

Why the French Revolution was good

3 Evil South American Dictators, & how evil they were.

Another list of massacres

And another list of massacres

The most evil regimes of the 19th Century