4th August: The Red Cross

On this date in 1870 the British Red Cross was founded. Here are ten things you possibly didn't know about the Red Cross organisation.

1. The Red Cross concept had already been around a number of years before this. Since 1859, in fact, when a Swiss businessman called Jean Henri Dunant went looking for French Emperor Napoleon III, in the hope of getting a meeting and persuading the emperor to help with a business venture. Dunant didn't find Napoleon, but he did stumble upon the Battle of Solferino, in which 40,000 troops were killed or wounded in a single day. Appalled by the conditions and lack of care for the wounded, he pitched in to help by organising volunteers to bring food and Water to the wounded, to treat their injuries and to write letters to their families. He later wrote a book about it and how awful it was, ending with an appeal for “permanent societies of volunteers who in time of war would give help to the wounded without regard for their nationality.” The following year, it happened.
2. The organisation took as its emblem a reverse of the Swiss Flag, ie a red cross on a White background. However, some countries weren't happy with that because they saw the cross as a Christian emblem. Before the Ottoman Empire went to war with Russia in 1877, it agreed to set up a national Red Cross society with one condition - that they could use a red crescent instead of a cross. Russia agreed to recognise that emblem during the conflict; although it was 1929 before the crescent symbol was incorporated into the Geneva Conventions. Today, the national societies of more than 30 Islamic nations use the red crescent.
3. Even so, there were still nations which objected to either symbol on religious grounds. Israel, for example, wanted to get a red Star of David accepted as a symbol. While that hasn't happened, there is a third symbol, recognised by the Geneva Convention in 2005 - a red crystal, or diamond. The Israeli equivalent of the Red Cross, Magen David Adom, uses a Star of David at home but adopted the crystal for use abroad, although it may have the Star of David inside it. There's even a fourth symbol, the red Lion and Sun, which was used in Iran before the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
4. You'd think Florence Nightingale would think the Red Cross was a great idea, but in fact, she didn't, at least not at first. She thought that such an organisation absolved governments from their responsibility to take care of their wounded and make war easier. She even wrote in a private letter to a friend essentially that what would someone from Geneva, which had never seen a war, possibly know about such things? However, later on, she changed her mind and even joined the British Red Cross ladies’ committee.
5. The American Red Cross was founded in 1881 by Clara Barton, who had nursed wounded troops in the US Civil War. She also helped locate thousands of missing men, earning the nickname “Angel of the Battlefield.” On a visit to Europe, she found out about the Red Cross and went home to lobby for the USA to sign up. She led the American Red Cross until she retired at the age of 83.
6. In Britain, the cause was taken up by Colonel Loyd-Lindsay (later Lord Wantage of Lockinge) in 1870. On 4 August 1870 a public meeting was held in London and a resolution passed that "a National Society be formed in this country for aiding sick and wounded soldiers in time of war and that the said Society be formed upon the Rules laid down by the Geneva Convention of 1864".
7. 12 countries signed up in 1864. Now 189 countries have a Red Cross or equivalent organisation. The international network now has more than 97 million staff, volunteers, and supporters. Some of them in the past have been quite famous. Agatha Christie was a voluntary aid detachment for the Red Cross during both world wars. Rudyard Kipling helped set up a library to supply books and magazines to wounded soldiers during WWI. E.M. Forster was another writer and a pacifist who, when deemed fit to be called up, chose to work as a Red Cross volunteer instead. He worked in Alexandria, Egypt, interviewing wounded soldiers trying to find out what might have happened to some of the soldiers who'd been reported missing.
8. Modern day supporters include Stephen Fry, Jamie Oliver, Grayson Perry, film director Ken Loach, Eddie Izzard, Simon Pegg, Vivienne Westwood, Angela Rippon, Victoria and David Beckham and Amanda Holden. These celebrities have donated money, clothing, and/or their time to help publicise appeals. The British Red Cross also claims to have one volunteer with webbed feet. No, not a duck - a Newfoundland Dog called Loki, who helps rescue people from floods.
9. The Red Cross has won more Nobel Peace Prizes than anyone. The organisation has won three Nobel Peace Prizes, in 1917, 1944 and 1963.
10. The Red Cross doesn't just work in war zones. It helps out with natural disasters and emergencies at home. In 1921 the British Red Cross established the first Blood transfusion service in the UK, and continued to provide help with the blood transfusion service in an ancillary specialist role until 1987. It also provided volunteers to nurse people in the Spanish flu epidemic in 1918/19. Look at their website now and the main appeal (at time of writing) is for a fund to help the victims of the recent terrorist attacks in Manchester and London. (http://www.redcross.org.uk/).

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