A Swiss Businessman's Horror at One Battle Created the Red Cross
In 1859, Swiss merchant Henry Dunant arrived in northern Italy hoping to meet Napoleon III, but instead stumbled upon the aftermath of the Battle of Solferino, where nearly 40,000 wounded soldiers lay abandoned without medical care. Traumatized by the suffering, Dunant organized local volunteers to help all wounded regardless of nationality. His subsequent book spurred European nations to establish the International Red Cross and sign the First Geneva Convention in 1864.
An Unexpected Detour into Slaughter
In late June 1859, a thirty-one-year-old Swiss businessman named Henry Dunant traveled to northern Italy. He was pursuing a private commercial interest, hoping to secure water rights and land concessions for a milling business he had launched in French-administered Algeria. To obtain these permissions, Dunant sought a personal audience with the French Emperor Napoleon III, who was then commanding French and Sardinian forces allied against the Austrian Empire in the Second Italian War of Independence. Dunant tracked the imperial headquarters to the hills south of Lake Garda, unaware that he was walking into the aftermath of one of the nineteenth century's bloodiest single-day clashes.
On June 24, 1859, the opposing armies collided near the small town of Solferino. More than 200,000 soldiers fought across a sprawling front in intense heat, exchanging artillery barrages, musket fire, and close-quarters bayonet charges for over twelve hours. By the time the Austrian forces retreated, the battlefield was carpeted with dead, dying, and maimed soldiers. Nearly 40,000 men were killed, wounded, or missing. Military medical services on both sides were hopelessly understaffed, poorly equipped, and quickly overwhelmed by the sheer volume of casualties.
When Dunant arrived in the neighboring town of Castiglione delle Stiviere that evening, he found a scene of total collapse. Thousands of wounded soldiers had been transported or had crawled into the town, where they were laid out in streets, squares, and churches without food, water, or basic wound dressings. Military surgeons were few in number, transport vehicles had been abandoned or commandeered for ammunition, and wounded men were left to die in agony from blood loss, gangrene, and dehydration.