American National Red Cross; Red Cross and Red Crescent
The International Committee assumed that there should be a relief
association in every country which endorsed the treaty, and so generally
was the idea accepted that at the end of the year 1864, when only ten
governments had been added to the convention, twenty-five committees had
been formed, under each of which relief societies were organized. It
was, however, only after the wars of 1864, 1866 and 1870 that the
movement began really to be popular. These conflicts brought not only
contestants, but neutral powers so to appreciate the horrors of war,
that they were quite ready to acknowledge the beneficence and wisdom of
the Geneva Treaty. Many who approved the humane idea and expressed a
hearty sympathy for the object to be obtained, had heretofore regarded
it as Utopian, a thing desirable but not attainable, an amiable and
fanatical illusion which would ever elude the practical grasp.
Nevertheless, the work accomplished during the wars referred to won over
not only such cavillers, but persons actually hostile to the movement,
to regard it as a practical and most beneficent undertaking. The crowned
heads of Europe were quick to perceive the benign uses of the
associations, and bestowed upon the central committees of their
countries money, credit and personal approbation. The families of
sovereigns contributed their sympathy and material support. The list of
princes and princesses who came forward with personal aid and assumed
direction of the work, was by no means small, thus proving correct the
augury of the Conference of 1863, that "The governments would accord
their high protection to the committees in their organization."
From one of the bulletins of the International Committee we make the
following hopeful extract:
"The whole of Europe is marshaled under the banner of the Red Cross. To
its powerful and peaceful sign the committee hopes to bring all the
civilized nations of the earth. Wherever men fight and tear each other
in pieces, wherever the glare and roar of war are heard, they aim to
plant the white banner that bears the blessed sign of relief. Already
they have carried it into Asia. Their ensign waves in Siberia, on the
Chinese frontier, and in Turkestan, and, through the African committee,
in Algeria and Egypt. Oceanica has a committee at Batavia. Japan
accepted the Treaty of Geneva in 1886, and on the breaking out of
hostilities between Japan and China, the Minister of War issued a
notification to the Japanese army, September 22, 1894, calling their
attention to the substance of the treaty."
ORGANIZATION AND METHODS OF WORK.
One of the things considered indispensable, and therefore adopted as a
resolution by the Conference of 1863, was the centralization of the work
in each country separately by itself.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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