The Red Cross in Peace and War

by Clara Barton

An institution or reform movement that is not selfish, must originate in the recognition of some evil that is adding to the sum of human suffering, or diminishing the sum of happiness. I suppose it is a philanthropic movement to try to reverse the process. Christianity, temperance and sanitary regulations in general are examples. Great evils die hard; and all that has yet been done is to keep them within as narrow limits as possible. Of these great evils, war is one. War is in its very nature cruel—the very embodiment of cruelty in its effects—not necessarily in the hearts of the combatants. Baron Macaulay thought it not a mitigation but an aggravation of the evil, that men of tender culture and humane feelings, with no ill will, should stand up and kill each other. But men do not go to war to save life. They might save life by keeping the peace and staying at home. They go solely with intent to inflict so much pain, loss and disaster on the enemy that he will yield to their terms. All their powers to hurt are focused upon him.

In a moving army the elements of destruction, armed men and munitions of war, have the right of way; and the means of preserving and sustaining even their own lives are left to bring up the rear as they best can. Hence, when the shock and crash of battle is over, and troops are advancing or retreating and all roads are blocked, and the medical staff trying to force its way through with supplies, prompt and adequate relief can scarcely ever reach the wounded. The darkness of night comes down upon them like a funeral pall, as they lie in their blood, tortured with thirst and traumatic fever. The memory of such scenes set a kindly Swiss gentleman to thinking of ways and means for alleviating their horrors. In time, and by efforts whose history must be familiar to many of you, there resulted the Geneva Convention for the relief of the sick and wounded of armies. I shall not trace its history, as it seems to be more to the present purpose to explain briefly what it proposed to do, and how it proceeded to do it.

The convention found two prime evils to consider. First, the existence of war itself; second, the vast amount of needless cruelty it inflicted upon its victims. For the first of these, with the world full of standing armies, every boundary line of nations fixed and held by the sword, and the traditions of four thousand years behind its customs, the framers of the convention, however earnest and devoted, could scarcely hope to find an immediate, if indeed, a perceptible mitigation. Only time, prolonged effort, national economics, universal progress and the pressure of public opinion could ever hope to grapple with this monster evil of the ages.

But the second—if it were not possible to dispense with the needless cruelties heretofore inflicted upon the victims of war, thus relieving human misery to that extent, seemed to the framers of the convention a reasonable question to be considered. This is what it proposed to do. A few sentences will explain how it proceeded to do it.

A convention was called at Geneva, Switzerland, for the fourth of August, 1864, to be composed of delegates accredited by the heads of the governments of the world, who should discuss the practices of war and ascertain to what extent the restraints of the established military code in its dealing with the sick and wounded of armies were needful for the benefit of the service; and to what extent they were needless, of benefit to no one, causing only suffering, of no strength to the service, and might be done away with; and to what extent war-making powers could agree to enter into a legal compact to that end. The consideration, discussion and concessions of two weeks produced a proposed agreement which took the form of a compound treaty, viz: A treaty of one government with many governments—the first ever made—a compact known as the Treaty of Geneva, for the relief of the sick and wounded in war.

Its basis was neutrality. It made neutral all sick, wounded, or disabled soldiers at a field; all persons, as surgeons, nurses and attendants, who cared for them; all supplies of medicine or food for their use; all field and military hospitals with their equipments; all gifts from neutral nations for the use of the sick and wounded of any army; all houses near a battlefield that would receive and nurse wounded men: none of these should be subject to capture. It provided for the sending of wounded men to their homes, rather than to prison; that friend and foe should be nursed together and alike in all military hospitals; and, most of all, that the people who had always been forcibly restrained from approaching any field of action for purposes of relief, however needed (with the single exception of our Sanitary Commission, and that under great difficulties and often under protest) should not only be allowed this privilege, but should arm and equip themselves with relief of all kinds, with the right to enter the lines for the helpless; thus relieving not alone the wounded and dying, but the armies of their care.

It provided a universal sign by which all this relief, both of persons and material, should be designated and known. A Greek red cross on a field of white should tell any soldier of any country within the treaty that the wearer was his friend and could be trusted; and to any officer of any army that he was legitimately there and not subject to capture.

Some forty nations are in that treaty, and from every military hospital in every one of these nations floats the same flag; and every active soldier in all their armies knows that he can neither capture nor harm the shelter beneath it, though it be but a little “A” tent in the enemy’s lines, and every disabled man knows it is his rescue and his home.

It may be interesting to know the formula of this compact. It recognizes one head, the International Committee of Geneva, Switzerland, through which all communications are made. One national head in each country which receives such communications, transmitting them to its government. The ratifying power of the treaty is the Congress of Berne. The organization in each nation receives from its government its high moral sanction and recognition, but is in no way supported or materially aided by it. The Red Cross means not national aid for the needs of the people, but the people’s aid for the needs of the nation. The awakening patriotism of the last few years should, I think, make this feature more readily apprehended.

As the foreign nations furnish the only illustrations of the value and material aid of the Red Cross in war, let us glance at what it has accomplished.