Activities of the Red Crescent Society
The Turkish Red Crescent Society has come forward so nobly during the present war that it has delighted observers by the depth and force of its vitality. A national institution of humanitarian aims, it had been recognized as such in the Geneva Conference of 1864—but though it had worked efficiently in the Russian and Turco-Greek wars of the last century, it is only lately, through the impulsion given to it some years ago by Mrs. Rifaat Pasha, wife of the present Turkish Ambassador in Paris, that its more modern organization and increased capital have brought it to the front, able to compete in usefulness and resource with the Red Cross Societies in other countries.
The society is managed by a Central Committee, composed of 30 members, subject to the approval of a president and to the occasional control of the government. At present His Excellency Hussein Hilmi Pasha, Ottoman Ambassador in Vienna, is president of the Red Crescent.
At the beginning of the Turco-Balkan war the Red Crescent Committee founded three hospitals for the wounded—one numbering over 600 beds—in the capital of the Empire, and several in the provinces, notably at Salonica, Adrianople, Uskub, Loule-Bourgas, etc., appointing well-equipped staffs of nurses and doctors. The necessary surgical instruments and medical supplies were procured from abroad, and recently ambulances were ordered from South Bend, Indiana. Four transportable hospitals of 100 beds each were received from England, and following the example set by European nations in such cases, the Red Crescent established field kitchens in the principal camps, which supplied the harrassed soldiers with soup and bread.
When the cholera broke out among the hapless troops, and they were sent back to Constantinople for treatment, the society organized three more new hospitals in the choleraic centers of Hademkeny, San-Stefano, etc., and as the sick soon filled to overflowing the epidemic wards hastily founded in the capital, the Red Crescent had the mosques of the city opened to the sufferers and supplied them with food, linen and medical care. It is computed that about 3,000 soldiers were supported in these improvised hospitals between the beginning of October and the end of November, 1912, and in this heavy task the Red Crescent was assisted by its branch missions of Hindoustan, Egypt and England, who took their full share of the heavy nursing and relief work. Besides the hospitals thus run, the Red Crescent sent Lt. 7500 in cash to the military sanitary authorities of Constantinople, as well as very numerous suits of clothing, articles of bedding and medicinal supplies.
The arrival of the refugees in Constantinople created a new and tremendous demand for aid. The Red Crescent immediately forwarded another Lt. 7500 to the prefecture of the town, and housed thousands of the unfortunate emigrants in old Konaks (palaces) and in temporary sheds. Committees of investigation and distribution were organized in the chief provincial centers to which the government sent the refugees and bread or money doled out.
The Ladies’ Section of the Red Crescent Society has proved most active on behalf of the patients and refugees. Societies were formed for the cutting and sewing of linen, of which the hospitals were continually in need, and the garments made reached the total of 70,000.
The foregoing facts (culled from the columns of the Jeune Turc), brief and incomplete as they are, suffice to show, however, that the energies of the Red Crescent Society have been severely taxed during the present terrible happenings, and it is an act of justice as well as one of keen satisfaction to say that these energies have been not drained but richly developed by the call made upon them.
In the present emergency the Red Crescent has been generously supported by the Red Cross Societies of different countries. Sisters of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent have worked shoulder to shoulder in alleviating suffering, as shown by the photograph herewith inclosed of the Imperial Hospital in Nichantache, Constantinople, kindly furnished by the Phebus Atelier.