At the outset the American Consuls throughout Italy were supplied with money to afford emergency relief. Forty-eight carloads of supplies were dispatched to the scene from storehouses in France. Several sections of ambulances also were started from France. Soup kitchens were opened, from which the refugees were given the first food they had received since the flight from their homes. Transportation for the refugees was arranged from the north, warehouses were opened at central points, manufacture of surgical dressings was undertaken on a mammoth scale, hospitals for the concentration of contagious diseases were opened, and then, four days after the United States declared war against Austria, the first Red Cross ambulances left Milan for the Italian front, cheered by thousands of persons there and at all towns through which they passed.
By the time the permanent commission reached Rome, in the early Winter, a complete survey of the whole Italian situation had been made by experts and all the more serious emergencies had been met. The American Red Cross was able to supply great quantities of equipment to replace the stores that were lost when the Teuton drive destroyed upward of a hundred hospitals. The present relief work is being continued along the lines of the work in France.
BELGIAN RELIEF WORK
Belgian relief work has called for appropriations aggregating $2,086,131. There has been a program for improving conditions among the Belgian troops, and to provide recreation and medical service outside the scope of the Belgian war budget. The initial Red Cross gift was half a million francs to the Belgian Red Cross, to be applied for the cost of the military hospital at Wolveringham. Contributions also have been made to the active field service of the army, in the form of surgical and medical equipment.
In civilian relief work in Belgium the American Red Cross placed its resources at the command of organizations already in the field to care for children and feeble persons, and get them away from the places of greatest danger. In order to have supplies ready at hand for emergencies twenty barrack warehouses were contracted for last Fall.
Special aid has been given to the schools and colonies for children. Establishment of health centres and a 250-bed hospital for the Belgian colony at Havre are among the other activities. A gift of 600,000 francs was made for the construction of a temporary village for refugees near Havre.
AIDING BRITISH WOUNDED
American Red Cross appropriations on account of work in Great Britain have amounted to $3,078,875. This includes two gifts of $953,000 and $1,193,125, respectively, to the British Red Cross and a gift of $500,000 to the Canadian Red Cross. The gifts to the British Red Cross will be used for relief and comforts to sick and wounded in hospitals, for the maintenance of auxiliary hospitals and convalescent homes in England, and for institutions for orthopedic and facial treatment and for general restorative work for disabled British soldiers. The British orthopedic hospitals serve as training schools for American surgeons. The gift to the Canadian Red Cross was given in recognition of the part Canada has played in the war. The money will be used to alleviate the suffering of wounded and sick Canadian soldiers.
The regular work of the American Red Cross in England includes the maintenance of a hospital at an English port for sick American soldiers and sailors, and support of a hospital at South Devon and of another for officers at Lancaster Gate, London.
Commissions have been maintained in Serbia, Rumania, and Russia, where relief has been administered according to the needs of the situation in each instance. In Rumania the active relief work was abandoned only when the Red Cross representatives were forced to leave the country following the Ukraine peace. At the present writing [April, 1918] a special commission, accompanied by several medical units, is on its way to take up relief work in Palestine.