The bloody battle that gave birth to a mission of mercy.
More than forty years later, Dunant was awarded the first Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.
Little remembered today, the Battle of Solferino was one of the most terrible in history. On June 24, 1859, French and Italian forces under Napoleon III attacked an Austrian army. Three hundred thousand men engaged in furious fighting for more than fifteen hours.
A Swiss businessman named Henry Dunant who was trying to arrange a meeting with Napoleon III found himself a witness to the battle. He was shocked by the horrifying carnage. “Every mound, every rocky crag is the scene of a fight to the death,” he wrote later. “It is sheer butchery.”
What came next was even worse. A staggering forty thousand were left wounded on the field of battle, and medical care for them was totally inadequate. Dunant threw himself into the effort to help the wounded, despairing when many died for lack of care. He recalled one wounded soldier who spoke bitterly of his fate: “If I had been looked after sooner I might have lived, and now by evening I shall be dead.” And he was.
Terribly moved by what he had seen, Dunant wrote a book about his experiences, and called for the formation of an international organization to provide aid. His work led to the First Geneva Convention and the formation of an international relief agency.
To protect doctors and nurses on the battlefield, the nations who formed the agency also agreed on a symbol that would proclaim its neutrality. In a fitting tribute to this compassionate Swiss businessman, they reversed the colors of the Swiss flag to create:
The Red Cross.
At the time of the Battle of Solferino, the French army had more veterinarians than it did medical doctors.
“IS IT NOT A MATTER OF URGENCY, SINCE UNHAPPILY WE CANNOT AVOID WAR, TO PREVENT, OR AT LEAST TO ALLEVIATE, THE HORRORS OF WAR.”
— HENRY DUNANT
