Jean-Henri Dunant
Clara Barton arrived in Great Britain in late August 1869 with no definite plans. Her doctors had ordered rest and a change of scene. She toured London, visited Paris, then proceeded to Geneva. She thought she might stay in Switzerland, but the depressing fall weather changed her mind; she moved to Corsica, seeking sun and wishing to visit the haunts of her longtime hero, Napoleon I.
She was ill, edgy, and demanding. Corsica, although beautiful, did not suit her and by March she was back in Geneva. Here, by chance, she was introduced to Dr. Louis Appia, a member of the International Committee of the Red Cross. This organization was the result of the Geneva Convention of 1864, which produced a treaty dealing with the treatment of wounded and sick soldiers, prisoners of war, and civilians under wartime conditions. The convention was inspired by a book entitled Un Souvenir de Solferino (A Memory of Solferino), in which author Jean-Henri Dunant described the horrors of the Battle of Solferino. At the time of her meeting with Appia, she had not heard of the Geneva Convention nor of Dunant. When she finally read Dunant’s work, she must have identified strongly with it, for he expressed perfectly the concern for the individual which had prompted Barton’s Civil War aid: “A son idolized by his parents, brought up and cherished for years by a loving mother who trembled with alarm over his slightest ailment; a brilliant officer beloved by his family, with wife and children at home; a young soldier who had left sweetheart or mother, sisters or old father to go to war; all lie stretched in the mud and dust, drenched in their own blood.”
At their first meeting, Appia asked Barton why the United States had not signed the Treaty of Geneva. A U.S. delegate, Charles Bowles, had been at the Geneva Convention, and Dr. Henry Bellows, president of the Sanitary Commission, had urged the government to accede to the treaty. But the United States remained the only major nation that had not accepted the international pact. Barton said a key factor was probably the American public’s almost total ignorance about the treaty, and she asked Appia to provide her with further information about the International Red Cross.
Barton soon found reason, in her words, “to respect the cause and appreciate the work of the Geneva Convention.” On July 19, 1870, France declared war on Prussia. She was restless and excited by hearing guns at practice and wrote to Appia, offering her services to the Red Cross. Before he could reply, however, she made her way to Basel, Switzerland, where she worked with Red Cross volunteers making bandages. This tame work exasperated her. “It is not like me, nor like my past to be sitting quietly where I can just watch the sky reddening with the fires of a bombarded city and ... have [nothing] to do with it.” Despite her frustration, Barton’s work in Basel gave her great respect for the garnering power of the Red Cross. Its warehouses were stocked with supplies of all kinds, and trained nurses and clerks wearing Red Cross armbands stood ready to assist. “I ... saw the work of these Red Cross societies in the field, accomplishing in four months under this systematic organization what we failed to accomplish in four years without it—no mistakes, no needless suffering, no starving, no lack of care, no waste, no confusion, but order, plenty, cleanliness, and comfort wherever that little flag made its way, a whole continent marshalled under the banner of the Red Cross—as I saw all this, and joined and worked in it, you will not wonder that I said to myself, ‘If I live to return to my country, I will try to make my people understand the Red Cross and that treaty.’”
The opportunity to be useful and to forget petty irritants restored her health. “I am so glad to be able to work once more,” she told her cousin, Elvira Stone, “I have worked ... all year, and grown stronger and better.” She then made her way toward the battlefields of France accompanied by Antoinette Margot, a young Swiss woman. On their way toward Mulhouse, where several battles had been reported, they met hundreds of refugees who pleaded with them to turn back. But when they encountered trouble from German troops, Barton brought out a sewing kit and speedily tacked a cross of red ribbon onto the sleeve of her dress. Thus began her first service under the Red Cross badge, which she would wear long and proudly.
Napoleon III, Emperor of France
Otto von Bismarck, Chancellor of Germany