“Among the horrors of war Dunant witnessed at Solferino were thousands upon thousands of dead and dying young men, without any sort of organized system for treating the mass casualties.” 

By Ben Wyckoff Shore

EVER HEARD OF Henri Dunant? If not, it’s okay. The happy few who can name him as the founder of the Red Cross movement are usually the Trivial Pursuit aficionados.

But in the midst of today’s crisis, Dunant‘s life is worth recalling in more depth than a general knowledge board game answer as his contribution to humanity is far from trivial. His is a story of humanity in a moment of crisis and acute trauma. Inspired and driven by the trauma he witnessed, we come to the origin story of the Red Cross.

Born in 1828 to a wealthy but pious family in Geneva, Dunant had a childhood filled with bible reading and alms giving. Even after growing up and learning the trade of the financier he managed to stay bright-eyed and naive. As a businessman, Dunant was wanting. He had the ambition and even the charisma but lacked the miserly tendencies that turn daily dimes into great fortunes. In short, he was a dreamer.

After setting out on his own and establishing a shaky enterprise in Algeria, it was not long before Dunant was in dire need of financial help and political intervention. As Algeria was then part of the French Protectorate, Dunant sought out an audience with the Emperor Napoleon III in order to get assistance in his business affairs.

As it happened, Napoleon III’s France was at war with Austria and the Emperor was on the frontlines in northern Italy.

Not to be deterred by that inconvenient fact, Dunant made his way into the warzone, where the two hostile powers, and their respective allies, were readying to engage in the bloodiest European land battle in 50 years. The belligerents would collide near the Lombardy town of Solferino.

Fought in a single day on June 24, 1859, a 130,000-man French-Sardinian army under the command of Napoleon III met an equal sized force of Austrians led by Emperor Franz Joseph. Not since the 1813 Battle of Leipzig had so many combatants taken to the field in Europe. After nine hours of vicious fighting, 20,000 soldiers were wounded or dead.

Dunant, who was sheltered and Swiss, had never before seen the fallout from war. The aftermath of the Battle of Solferino he witnessed was a life-changing experience.

Warfare in the mid-19th century had reached a new level of killing potential when compared to prior decades, with combatants trading in their smoothbore muskets for more deadly rifles. Artillery had become more mobile and far more accurate.

Battles in the mid-1800s had not yet taken on the trench-style warfare of WWI emphasizing frontal assaults and bloody attrition; the Battle of Solferino featured lightning-fast cavalry charges and troop movements designed to inflict maximum damage in minimal time.

Among the horrors of war Dunant witnessed at Solferino were thousands upon thousands of dead and dying young men, without any sort of organized system for treating the mass casualties. The clash was also one of the last major military engagements fought prior to the widespread use of antiseptic. As such, infection among the wounded was rampant, as was amputation. Worse still, there were instances of enemy wounded being sought out on the battlefield and summarily dispatched by bayonet, gunshot or rifle-butt. These truly traumatic scenes changed Henri Dunant, and as a result, the world.

Despite the carnage, Dunant remained at Solferino to help care for the wounded in the best way he could: as an administrator. He worked tirelessly organizing a system of make-shift field hospitals. And when not poring over documents, he rolled up his sleeves to help care for the wounded personally.

In the days and weeks that followed, Dunant tried to return to his normal life, but the dreamer found that he was haunted by the trauma he’d witnessed. He published a book detailing what he’d experienced entitled A Memory of Solferino. In it he laid bare the human cost of the battle in gory detail.

Durant’s book spread through Europe like wildfire. National leaders were appalled into taking action. In fact, the momentum built into a full-scale movement when Dunant, along with a small group of like minds, founded the International Committee for the Red Cross.

Though this organization was founded to improve the conditions for battlefield casualties, it has expanded and grown into one of the largest humanitarian organizations in the world. Today the movement maintains volunteer societies in 190 countries and has alleviated the suffering of millions of people facing the effects of warfare, natural disaster, and epidemic.

Beyond founding the Red Cross, Dunant ultimately helped coordinate the Geneva Convention and was awarded the first-ever Nobel Peace Prize.

I found Henri Dunant’s story so fascinating it inspired me to write the historical novel Terribilita.  Based on research into Dunant and his era, the story features a fictional Italian family swept up in the politics and violence of the 19th century Risorgimento movement.

Dunant’s response to the aftermath of conflict was one of many possible reactions to a crisis, but it represents an important lesson and a message of hope as we consider the collective trauma of today.   

Ben Wyckoff Shore is the author of Terribilita, a historical novel set in Italy at the time of the Italian unification movement (Risorgimento). An avid reader with a penchant for writing about very flawed, very human characters as well as stories about rebellion and self-sacrifice, Ben enjoys nature and loves all sorts of dogs, but especially underdogs.