Its overseas organization at first was of modest dimensions. One warehouse with unpretentious headquarters in France sufficed in November, 1916, and there was only one Canadian hospital to supply in the early months of August, 1915. Then the organization, like everything else produced by the war, rapidly developed and became far-reaching in its scope.
The French were early recipients of Canadian bounty through the Red Cross. Money and hospital supplies went from the Dominion to the French sick and wounded, and a depot was opened in Paris for receiving and distributing Canadian supplies to French hospitals. This was merely a beginning of the practical sympathy Canada was eager to show to France. The Red Cross subscribed upward of $100,000 for various French war charities. It presented a hospital to France located at Joinville-le-Pont, Vincennes, at a cost of $370,000, equipped with medical supplies and staffed by Canadian surgeons and nurses, and provided a service of motor lorries and motor ambulances for the benefit of other French hospitals.
Money and supplies were bestowed on other Allied countries. The total grants made to the various Allies, including France, amounted to more than $500,000. Substantial help, embracing 21,000 cases of supplies, was also furnished to the Belgian, Italian, Russian, Serbian, and Rumanian Red Cross societies and to the Wounded Allies Relief Fund.
A glimpse of the activities of the Canadian Red Cross is afforded by these extracts from the record of its principal work overseas during the war period:
1914—Canadian Red Cross supplies given to the following hospitals in France: Two casualty clearing stations with 200 beds each; four stationary hospitals with 200 beds each; four general hospitals with 1,040 beds each; six field ambulances with 50 beds each; and in England, the opening of the Duchess of Connaught Red Cross Hospital with 1,000 beds, besides the sending of comforts to Canadians in other hospitals.
1915-16—Assistance given to the Canadian Army Medical Corps in England on behalf of 16,000 to 18,000 sick and wounded Canadians monthly.
Aid given in the erection and equipping of huts and other buildings for five Canadian hospitals in England and five in France.
Recreation huts erected, equipped, and maintained in the Canadian hut hospitals.
1916-17—Assistance given in France to five general and three stationary hospitals, four casualty clearing stations, thirteen field ambulances, and fourteen small hospitals attached to forestry, tunneling and other companies.
Comforts distributed to 20,000 sick and wounded Canadians throughout Great Britain and to 21 Canadian and 130 British hospitals.