I started looking into the record of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in some detail during the early 1970s, and have continued to follow the activities of the organization since that time.Footnote 1 So I was pleased when the Review asked me to read through the early years of its publication and react to what I read about the founding agency of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement (the Movement). I did so without pretending to be a historian who was writing a complete history. For this project I visited no archives in person in order to supplement the journal. As a historically oriented political scientist with a concentration on international relations, I focused on what the early journal itself might tell us about the ICRC.
Quite a bit, it turns out, because the Review was a major instrument of the organization as it sought to shape the Movement and advance its own status. The major issues of that era, for both the Movement and the ICRC, were treated by the journal. The journal also revealed a great deal about the central figure of Gustave Moynier and some of his colleagues. The ICRC was very small back then, and the early Review was quite personalized. Some of the more personalized material should perhaps not have appeared in print, but it is too late for that concern now. We benefit from that lack of restraint.
I trust professional historians will forgive me for intruding on their turf. Perhaps they can use what follows to enhance their own studies. They may find that most of my observations confirm what they already know. That's fine, because confirmation is part of determining what we think is truth. But they, and especially the general reader, may find something new in what follows. For those who live at great distance from the ICRC's archives, they can certainly learn a lot from the early Review, which can be accessed via the internet.Footnote 2 I have chosen to focus on the early motivations of the ICRC, its role in the Movement, how the ICRC viewed States and public international law, and a number of other points that struck me as worthy of further research.
Some people are still confused about the founding of what became the ICRC in 1863, and the development of the global Red Cross and Red Crescent (RC)Footnote 3 network of agencies. This is not the place to recount the key facts. Suffice it to say that the Review, appearing first only in French as the Bulletin International des Sociétés de la Croix-Rouge (though the precise title varied for a time), appeared from late 1869. Thus the journal had nothing to say in the present tense about events from 1863 to most of 1869.
Officially, the 1869 International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent (International Conference), meeting in Berlin, asked the ICRC to undertake the task of editing a journal for the nascent network of private aid societies whose central mission back then was to supplement State authorities for better care of the war wounded. But even before 1869, the 1867 International Conference in Paris had discussed creation of a journal, and the ICRC had conducted a survey of interested parties about possibilities and then manoeuvred to get the journal published – and edited – in Geneva. The ICRC often operated in this way: taking an initiative but being sure to get agreement from the Conference or perhaps individual National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (National Societies) in order to legitimate what it wanted to do. The early ICRC, and above all Gustave Moynier, who was its president from 1864 to 1910, manifested persistent determination and not a little self-interest – but it tried to camouflage particularly the latter trait in a cocoon of modesty and service to others.
Moynier was not only ICRC president but also the editor of the Bulletin for about thirty years until age caused him to reduce his workload in the last decade of his life. The ICRC as an organization was tiny in those days, consisting of five to twelve persons. There were no support staff or delegates in the field. Moynier displayed many admirable traits, but a shrewd sense of communication and presentation was not one of them. The early issues of the journal constituted less than exciting reading for the most part, consisting of reports from the various National Societies about their central committees (or governing boards): who had died, who had been replaced by whom, their budgets, their statutes, where their sub-units were located, what medals had been designed, who their (upper class) patrons were, how many bottles of wine and cognac had been sent to the troops, etc. The various national units submitted their materials, and then the ICRC translated them into French if necessary, with apparently very little editing.
In a rare burst of candour and lack of diplomacy, the Bulletin (meaning Moynier, most probably) observed in print that a Spanish report was not very important.Footnote 4 In this the Spanish were not unique. Even in the fall of 1914 after the outbreak of World War I, the Bulletin commenced in pedantic fashion with its usual list of past publications about aid to war victims arranged country by country. When the journal did present an interesting and broad essay, it was often buried in the middle of the issue rather than in a leading spot.
Moynier, the careful lawyer with a reputation for organizational detail, seemed to know well the nature of his journal but could not bring himself to change its format. Perhaps he felt bound by International Conference's resolutions saying the journal should focus on Movement issues. But the Bulletin shows no evidence that he lobbied the Conference to alter the journal. He acknowledged on several occasions that it was an in-network publication that was too technical, dealing with organizational details, and with little appeal to the public.Footnote 5 Most national publics lacked knowledge early on about this new international network to aid the war wounded, but the Bulletin was obviously not going to correct that problem. For Moynier it was up to the National Societies to speak to their publics. With a keen Swiss sense of finances, Moynier wanted more paid subscriptions but apparently knew why they were not forthcoming. It was clear he understood that the journal lacked broad appeal.
However, one starting a new National Society in say, Uruguay, could learn a great deal from the journal about how the more active units of the Movement – the various German-speaking units, or the Russians, or the Japanese, or the Dutch, or the Americans – did it. For those interested in Movement details about structure and function, one could learn a lot from the Bulletin, but for general readers it was a non-starter, because it was not designed for them. The Bulletin was serious but mostly pedantic, and Moynier was serious but not charismatic. Henry Dunant was the visionary, the crusader; Moynier was the builder,Footnote 6 who laboured persistently, brick by brick. The Bulletin was to a great degree a manual about how to do RC masonry.
The ICRC and the Movement
There are essays in the Bulletin that make it worthwhile to slog through the other 80% of its contents. These essays clarify the values that animated the ICRC and hence the early years of the Movement. Other essays make clear the ICRC's vision for how to implement Dunant's dreamFootnote 7 of a system of private aid societies that would supplement national military establishments. Still others indicate blind spots or complexities in the views expressed in Geneva. On a number of points the views expressed by Moynier, or later president Gustave Ador, were widely shared within the North Atlantic area.
Religious conviction and organizational pride
The Bulletin does not hide the fact that the basic impulse driving early developments was the notion of Christian charity. The journal makes this abundantly clear on Moynier's part. Other literature indicates that the same held true for the other “Geneva gentlemen” who founded the ICRC. Henry Dunant was a deeply religious Christian for most of his life, and Dr Appia was similar in many respects to Dunant. Dr Maunoir and General Dufour were practicing Protestants.
According to the Bulletin, as age took its toll on Moynier, he collected the memorabilia of his life. A central position was given to a print (gravure) of Christ on the cross.Footnote 8 The idea of a universal Christian charity was intended to challenge a “savage patriotism”.Footnote 9 One could not count on the masses to naturally demonstrate this Christian internationalism; rather, it was a select few who would have to lead.Footnote 10 An elite would have to develop a broad spirit of the fraternity of humanity that was necessary to stand up to barbarism and fanaticism.Footnote 11 As the Franco-Prussian war raged in 1870–71, Moynier noted that many obstacles to a dynamic Red Cross role had been overcome thanks to God.Footnote 12 In the activities of the specialized agency set up at Basel to coordinate Red Cross action in that war, God's blessings were evident.Footnote 13 Even when some considered that Christian charity had evolved into global humanitarianism, it was still a project designed by God.Footnote 14
In the very first issue of the Bulletin, Moynier tried to answer a persistent and obviously long-standing criticism of the Red Cross idea. According to him, various anti-war groups existed and the ICRC was sympathetic to their cause, but since war had proven a mainstay of human history, the ICRC was justified in trying to limit its evils. Help for the war wounded was a good place to start.Footnote 15 He followed up this opening defence a few issues later with an even clearer scepticism about peace groups.Footnote 16 For him, writing in the midst of the Franco-Prussian war, it was clear that even civilized nations fought ferocious battles. He thought peace was just a truce between wars. For him, it was hard to know God's plan for humankind, but sooner or later war occurred. Thus, he argued, the Red Cross is needed.Footnote 17 By the 1880s Moynier was even more convinced that war would continue but that humanitarian progress could be made, even if the RC effort was only a palliative for a chronically bad situation.Footnote 18 Moynier and the ICRC combined pessimism about the human condition with optimism about improvements at the margins. A long review of developments in the 1880s was basically optimistic about the RC's future despite a critical view of State policies, citing such things as greater attention to humanitarian issues in the Crimean War and American Civil War.Footnote 19
This original Christian impulse was both dynamic and problematic. The early ICRC was Christian, Protestant and strictly Genevan. Most of its early members, like Moynier, were serious and dedicated to the cause, determined to find a way to translate Dunant's general vision into a pragmatic, effective and broad institution. Dunant left the ICRC, or was forced to leave it, in 1867, and the others doggedly carried on, probably satisfied if not happy to see the crusading visionary go.Footnote 20
But what was the fate of Christian charity when the Red Cross idea was projected into societies not even nominally Christian? The ICRC had universal aspirations for its work. Its humanitarian objectives fit relatively well with at least some sectors of what was often called the Christian West. But this attempt to organize aid societies for the war wounded met certain early obstacles in places like Turkey, Persia and Egypt.
These obstacles were clearly noted in the pages of the Bulletin. The Ottoman Empire claimed in the 1870s that its soldiers objected to the red cross emblem as a neutral and protective signage in war. The Sublime Porte said it was sympathetic to private aid societies for the purpose of aiding the war wounded (not that it consistently supported such action in an effective way) but that it wanted to use the red crescent, not the red cross, as the emblem for such work. So the ICRC's Christian origins led to problems, first with the Muslim Turks, then with the Muslim Egyptians (originally a part of the Ottoman Empire but with periodic autonomy), and also with the Muslim Persians. Moynier acknowledged that the cross was a symbol that could cause negative feelings in Muslims, even as he first asserted that the Ottomans were not allowed to change emblems on their own.Footnote 21
It should be noted that various countries, like Japan and Thailand (Siam back then), became part of the Red Cross network without insisting on changes to the red cross emblem. They were obviously non-Western but ultimately had no problem with RC objectives stemming from Christian charity. It was too bad that Turkey, in particular, acted otherwise. The ICRC, reproducing a point made by the Swiss government, wished that Turkey had acted like Japan.Footnote 22 But parties to conflict like Russia (officially Christian in the Tsarist era) agreed to respect the neutrality of the red crescent emblem in battle, on condition that the red cross was also respected. And the 1907 Hague Conference, in dealing with the laws of war, showed that many States accepted Turkey's red crescent.
So the ICRC, which itself did not use the words “Red Cross” in its title until 1875–76, had to be flexible about emblems. The ICRC had proposed use of the red cross emblem by all units of the network in the Bulletin in 1873, but did not incorporate “Red Cross” into its name until two years later.Footnote 23 By the 1880s Moynier thought it had become too late to abandon the red cross symbol because “it had become dear to the Aryan race”.Footnote 24 Moreover, a question of form should not interfere with continuing humanitarian work.Footnote 25
According to the Bulletin, if RC actors were to have a global movement, pragmatism was necessary. Besides, the red cross on a white background, as defined in public international law by the 1864 Geneva Convention (drafted by the ICRC, meaning Moynier and Dufour), was merely the reverse of the Swiss national flag. The red cross emblem had no religious significance. Moynier had made this argument in print at least as early as 1873, even before Turkey challenged the red cross emblem in the 1876–78 war with Russia.Footnote 26 So the reality of the early ICRC being religiously motivated, with Protestant evangelism in the forefront, eventually yielded to the later ICRC as a secular humanitarian organization. A universal movement required downplaying Western Christian Protestant origins.Footnote 27
Christian charity was not the only value at work in the early ICRC. It was central, but there was also pride in being Genevan and Swiss. It is probably a fool's errand to try to say which identity was stronger. Moynier was perhaps not fully diplomatic to have printed in the Bulletin a speech he gave to a group in Geneva in 1873. In that talk, he closed a review of ten years of ICRC activity by saying that especially Genevans and Swiss should be proud of what the ICRC had accomplished. He endorsed Swiss patriotism and tried to distinguish it from conceit.Footnote 28 He was even more undiplomatic or incautious to have printed in the journal another ode to Swiss virtues. In a celebration of twenty-five years of RC activity at the Hotel de Bergues in Geneva, he first recounted in flattering terms the accomplishments of the ICRC itself, saying that the ICRC had achieved a pre-eminent position without seeking it (though this is not entirely true). He then praised Swiss and Genevan authorities (among others), asserting that the Swiss had the best passports in the world. He closed with a toast to Switzerland, suggesting that the ICRC had contributed to the good name of Switzerland abroad.Footnote 29 In 1899, a book review in the Bulletin by Alfred Gautier of the ICRC referred to Switzerland as the chosen land of international philanthropy or charitable works.Footnote 30
The Bulletin, which commenced publication in 1869 as already noted, is largely silent about an early effort by the French to take over leadership of the Movement and relocate its headquarters to Paris. This was in actuality successfully resisted by the all-Swiss, all-Genevan ICRC, despite some appearances of flexibility. While historical retrospectives were published by Moynier in the Bulletin, they never went fully into those details – and certainly not candidly.Footnote 31
Later in the mid-1880s, when the Russians sought to replace the all-Swiss ICRC with an international body, the ICRC was clear in the journal about its opposition to what the Russians were proposing. The ICRC would first profess to be neutral about the proposal, then make clear it was opposed. The Russians would have had the members of the new central body elected by National Societies. The ICRC found the Russian proposals impractical, which they were in part because they would have also had the new RC central body pass judgment about State war crimes. Being the central node in RC communications, the ICRC could delay action – as well as having an important platform for its own views. The Russians complained repeatedly about the lack of timely action on their proposals, and the ICRC denied stalling, improbably blaming tardiness on force majeure.Footnote 32 Crucially, the ICRC manoeuvred to keep the Russian proposals as one package. Thus, what was impractical – i.e., having a RC organ rule on State war crimes – was combined with what was not so impractical – i.e., replacing the ICRC with an international organ elected by the National Societies.Footnote 33 Once again, the ICRC manoeuvred effectively on behalf of its traditional position. Genevan and Swiss identity was at work. The shifting Russian package of proposals, launched about 1884, was finally voted down unanimously at the 1897 International Conference in Vienna.Footnote 34 The ICRC had planted so many seeds of doubt that even the Russian Red Cross Society did not vote for its own initiative.
The ICRC at one point used a power-politics argument to justify the status quo: whoever has legal authority has power to give orders, but who then would execute those orders? What material forces would be put at the disposal of this new authority? If it had no such resources, what would become of its authority? Existing arrangements, with the ICRC at the centre, were sufficient according to the ICRC. There were no big gaps necessitating other arrangements. According to this argument, one could study the Russian proposals in the future but the status quo should be continued.Footnote 35 This is a clear example of the ICRC using its central position in the Movement, and the Bulletin, to take a specific stand about itself and the Movement. It was not always hesitant to advocate for its own views and interests – absolute neutrality had its limits in Movement politics. Or as the author Anne Patchett, in her acclaimed novel Bel Canto, has the fictitious and neutral Swiss ICRC delegate Messner say about a hostage situation in South America: “The Swiss never take sides …. We are only on the side of the Swiss.”Footnote 36
After the Russian initiative had been laid to rest, one could later find in the Bulletin some evidence of frustration over the fact that the Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907 were dealing with subjects that overlapped with the 1864 Geneva Convention (GC), and thus that the all-Swiss ICRC and the Swiss government did not have a monopoly on being central to legal developments regarding the laws of war – particularly care of the wounded. This is not to deny that some developments of those Hague Conferences were helpful to the ICRC in trying to limit war's evils, like the adoption of the Martens Clause.Footnote 37 Then there were other developments outside the RC (and Swiss) framework that proved beneficial to the development of humanitarian principles, such as the St Petersburg Declaration of 1868.Footnote 38 Still, the ICRC (or the Swiss government) was sometimes vexed by those outside the RC process taking up subjects covered in the 1864 GC, including even the revision of that treaty.
There are other articles in the Bulletin presenting a historical review in which the reader finds the ICRC praising the ICRC, or even Moynier praising Moynier. For example, in 1905, maybe still smarting from Dunant's Nobel Prize in 1901, Moynier reproduced in the Bulletin his letter to the editor of the Tribune de Genève. In it he noted some of the accomplishments of the ICRC under his leadership. He also threw in a put-down to Dunant, who was said not to have even been a member of the Geneva Society for Public Welfare, a sub-committee of which became the ICRC (in fact, Dunant was a member of that sub-committee, without being a member of the parent body).Footnote 39 The immediate context was a fundraising effort by the Swiss Red Cross, the president of which was a Swiss German. Clearly Moynier wanted the Swiss public to know about himself and the ICRC, and its origins in Geneva, and not to get it confused with the Swiss Red Cross – with non-Genevans being prominent in the latter's leadership.
It is not irrelevant that Moynier's father, André, had been part of the Genevan political elite that was forced out of local office by more liberal political forces in 1848, with the son decamping to Paris to finish his legal studies. Gustave Moynier's return to Geneva, his rise in the world of social welfare work, and then his presidency at the ICRC offered an opportunity for his family and the conservative haute bourgeoisie of which it was a part to reclaim a certain status and prestige.Footnote 40 The point here is that Genevan and Swiss identity, and acceptance in those circles, was important to Moynier. Those identity factors, along with Christian principles, helped drive his work ethic and his determination to accomplish great things – which he did. The Bulletin did not often refer overtly to these Genevan and Swiss factors, but one could glimpse them now and then in the pages of the journal. Identity politics was also to affect the ICRC in the future.Footnote 41
Christianity, colonialism and racism
The Christian impulses of the ICRC and Moynier had blind spots, as was true of much – but not all – of the rest of the nominally Christian West. Moynier fully bought into the view that the Christian West constituted a group of civilized nationsFootnote 42 which then undertook colonialism in large measure as a civilizing mission and “white man's burden”. It cannot be overstressed how widespread was this justification of colonialism. One of the ways in which non-Western nations like Japan, and then various nations in South America, proved that they were civilized was, to Moynier, by consenting to the 1864 GC and then taking seriously the establishment of National Societies. Moynier often utilized the dichotomy of civilized and uncivilized nations in the pages of the Bulletin, and non-Western elites, starting with the Turks and followed more effectively by the Japanese, could indeed enter the preferred group. It is fairly easy to deduce from those pages that sub-Saharan Africa was among the most “uncivilized” areas.
It is not unrelated that when Moynier summarized in the Bulletin the rules for recognizing new National Societies by the ICRC, applicant organizations had to, inter alia, serve the entire nation without regard to place of birth, gender, religion or political orientation – but one could discriminate on the basis of race.Footnote 43 The racially segregated American Red Cross had been recognized by the ICRC in 1882. The International Conference could have objected to the rules for recognition practiced and then codified by the ICRC, linked to Conference resolutions in a circular process, but it did not. Racism was clearly widespread in the North Atlantic area in his time. One doubts that there was a black official in any of the National Societies then in existence. All of the major European powers were colonial powers and acted on the basis of an assumed white superiority.
Moynier and presumably the rest of the ICRC clearly had a dim view of people of colour, especially Africans. This was made embarrassingly clear in an article in which black Africans of that time were said to be too savage and primitive to associate with humanitarian values.Footnote 44 Humanitarian progress had certainly been achieved by “the Aryan race”, as shown by the widespread adoption of the red cross emblem;Footnote 45 Africans, however, were another matter. Lest anyone still be in doubt about the view from Geneva, a later essay argued that the idea of the Red Cross was thought up by whites, who were at the top of the ladder of civilizations, whereas blacks, as in the Congo, were characterized by excessive and ingrained savagery.Footnote 46 In these views the white ICRC was a product of its times as part of the European upper classes – although there were occasional European voices criticizing colonialism and racism. It was not just in the US South that the Christian religion was broadly infected with racism.
The deeply troubling example of the Congo Free State is treated only incompletely in the Bulletin, with important points left out. King Leopold of Belgium took control of the Congo Free State as his personal property in 1885, selling commercial interests to investors who, like the king, were greatly interested in economic gain, mainly involving rubber. The result was horrific for the local inhabitants. One close observer later held that the murders, mutilations, torture and other widespread abuses added up to genocide.Footnote 47 Be that as it may, various Western sources generated such negative publicity about the Congo that in 1908 Leopold was forced to relinquish the territory to the Belgian State, which then ruled it in only slightly better condition until independence in 1960. Moynier was King Leopold's consul general in Switzerland from 1890 to 1904. The Bulletin is silent as to whether negative publicity about the Congo Free State caused Moynier's 1904 resignation as its representative based in Geneva.
The Bulletin recorded such facts as the creation of the Congolese and African Red Cross Society, controlled by white Belgians with offices in Belgium. It was supposed to be a National Society for all of black Africa, not just for the Congo – an idea accepted by the ICRC, since it could now claim that the RC idea covered all of Africa.Footnote 48 Red Cross good deeds in the Congo basin were listed, such as hospitals created and medical missions dispatched, but the overall situation was never mentioned – not by the Belgian Red Cross and not by the ICRC, despite ample publicity given by various sources to the horrors taking place. Of course, Moynier's close association with Leopold's commercial objectives was never mentioned in the journal.
The situation was more or less comparable in Southwest Africa (now Namibia). As Imperial Germany moved into the area in 1884 as part of the great carve-up of Africa, the German military ruthlessly suppressed local opposition during the first decade of the twentieth century. The general consensus now is that the German action constituted genocide, particularly against the Herero people. Modern Germany appeared to accept this view in 2015, although various disputes continue.Footnote 49
In the Bulletin, one can read of the activities of the German Red Cross in assisting wounded and sick German soldiers both in Southwest Africa and upon their return back home. There is no mention of the German Red Cross treating wounded Herero under the principles of neutrality and impartiality. The German Red Cross finally mentioned the Herero in its report to the Bulletin in 1908 – as a menace to the German colony.Footnote 50 There is no mention of the overall context, either by the German Red Cross or by the ICRC.Footnote 51
Then there was the matter of atrocities by British forces, or irregulars operating with British forces, after the battle of Omdurman in Sudan in 1898. It was a fact that many of the wounded Dervishes were killed after the battle, as the British Empire operating out of Egypt secured its control of the Upper Nile. European parties recorded the events, which led to much controversy back home. Moynier, for the ICRC, supported a dubious British official version of events, reprinting in the Bulletin pretty much the same debatable story that the British government offered to Parliament. According to these questionable accounts, the uncivilized Dervishes had committed atrocities themselves and tried to kill any medical persons who attempted to help them, so it was understandable that the British – who were not directly involved – had encountered difficulties.Footnote 52 It seemed to be a case of the ICRC supporting colonial forces of whatever nationality in their “civilizing mission”, or displaying a preference for the Anglo-Saxons,Footnote 53 or both. British responsibility for war crimes against the wounded of a defeated “primitive” army seemed unimportant to the ICRC.
In general, as Britain, France, Germany and other European powers took control of non-Western areas by force in the glory days of colonialism, metropolitan National Societies followed. As auxiliaries to national military establishments, they organized RC branches in conquered areas. So, for example, as the French moved into Southeast Asia and North Africa, the Bulletin duly recorded French Red Cross activity in Indochina, Tunisia, Morocco, etc. There was no commentary from the ICRC about the Western violence and even atrocities that were at the heart of this expansion of “civilization” and “Christian” principles. Rather, via the Bulletin, the ICRC enthused over the spread of the RC idea to formerly uncivilized areas, noting that this was a positive benefit from war.Footnote 54
Some might object that one should not hold the nineteenth-century ICRC to the standards of the twenty-first century. That is a fair point. Much of the West at the time saw colonialism as having brought the rule of law, some economic development, and more education to colonized areas;Footnote 55 indeed, some in the West still consider this to be the case. The ICRC did not have delegates in the field in those days, and perhaps some candid reporting from the scene might have altered views in Geneva. In any event, there were nineteenth-century voices objecting to abuse of locals in places like the Congo Free State and other Western-dominated areas. The ICRC did not lend its voice to that chorus. As it helped organize RC assistance to various conflicts in the non-Western world, it had the opportunity to offer its comments, as it did on other subjects. But concerning the dark side of colonialism, Moynier and the ICRC and the International Conference were all silent – at least according to the pages of the Bulletin.
Structure of the Movement
From the beginning, the ICRC has been remarkably consistent about stressing the decentralized nature of the RC network. While the ICRC expressed pride in its accomplishments in nurturing and bringing to fruition the Red Cross idea as expressed by Henry Dunant, it never sought to command or control other RC agencies. It vigorously and shrewdly defended its position as the central communications node in the network, and it did not hesitate to identify as the founding agency of the Movement and as having a special role to play regarding the Geneva Convention. As early as 1886 it referred to itself as the promoter and champion of that treaty, not leaving that activity to Swiss federal authorities. While it flirted with the idea of centralized enforcement of “Geneva law” as established by States, it did not push for centralized enforcement early on. It discussed the idea of some sort of union or federation of the National Societies, but it never showed in the Bulletin how to reconcile the idea of an RC union with the untrammelled independence of the National Societies.Footnote 56 The unity of the RC network remained strictly moral in these early days.Footnote 57
Back in 1864 at an informal meeting of individuals interested in the Red Cross idea, the American Charles S. Bowles – who was an observer at the diplomatic conference of that year – spoke in a favour of a hierarchical network of actors that would be regulated by an authoritative central organ. General Dufour, the first president of the ICRC, spoke strongly against the idea, arguing that the network should be decentralized; Dunant was present and did not object to this, indicating agreement with Dufour. For Dufour, uniformity of detail was unimportant.Footnote 58 This indicated that the ICRC as a whole was on the same page; it was not just Moynier that favoured a loosely organized network of humanitarian agencies.
In 1870 Moynier made clear in print his unwavering view of the various National Societies, saying that each was independent and manifested “self-government”.Footnote 59 The ICRC was merely the “intermediary” among these independent units, which derived their energy and support from being entirely national, not international.Footnote 60 At that time the organization said that its place was not on the battlefield; that role was for the national units. Moynier's early position was that each National Society was free to use whatever emblem it wished. This position of course changed, but Moynier never changed his view about the independence of each national unit, whose accomplishments would be stifled by centralized authority.Footnote 61 The ICRC would help with communications but sought no authority over others.Footnote 62 The resolutions of International Conference were non-binding since the National Societies manifested complete autonomy.Footnote 63 Common ideals would hold the Movement together.Footnote 64 The only Conference resolutions that were binding were those from 1863, because they were essential; without those resolutions, there would be no RC network.Footnote 65 Otherwise, National Societies were totally independent.Footnote 66
The ICRC liked to project the view of itself as a disinterested actor with no legal authority and no special interests. In this self-image, it was an unofficial group from a small nation. It had simply been good at producing agreement within the RC network and had helped limit the scourge of war – including through the development of international law. It was completely independent of strategic politics and only sought to preserve its own freedom of action.Footnote 67 It is probable that the ICRC argued so strongly for the autonomy of National Societies in order to protect its own independence. If this was an early conscious strategy, it was to prove very useful not only in defeating Russian proposals for centralization but also after 1919.Footnote 68 It may also have been the case that the ICRC was influenced by the Swiss national political system, which manifested a relatively weak centre and relatively strong cantons.
A young and decentralized RC network did work tolerably well in the Franco-Prussian war and in the various Balkan wars. Neutral National Societies did send medical personnel and material – and money – to help victims. Specialized RC agencies created by the ICRC to collect information and coordinate aid were created and were busy in Basel, Trieste, Belgrade, Lourenço Marques, etc. The latter agency indicated some European interest in war victims in southern Africa due to the various Boer wars; of course, there was a European connection via the British and Dutch. Under the ICRC vision of the Movement, humanitarian aid did increase and war victims did benefit. The operation of the Movement in the 1912–13 Greek-Turkish war was sizable enough so that in retrospect it constituted a practice run in some ways for the Great War of 1914–18.
Despite its belief in a decentralized system, the ICRC spent much time and energy trying to get National Societies to implement the resolutions of the International Conference both in peace and in war. The ICRC view was paradoxical: the National Societies were totally independent, but they should follow the Conference's resolutions voluntarily. For example, in the late 1890s the Turkish Red Crescent considered what to do about a for-profit company using the red crescent emblem on its product, with a percentage of sales going to Turkey's National Society. The ICRC urged rejection of that idea, citing a resolution of the International Conference that had met in Karlsruhe.Footnote 69
From time to time Moynier slipped into the Mother Hen mode of pecking at various National Societies. The Turkish Red Crescent lacked vitality and had even collapsed at times. The Austrian Red Cross was disappointing in the lack of aid sent to the various Balkan wars. Montenegrin individuals had asked Geneva for help, but they were not a recognized RC society and had no local means for action.Footnote 70 All this was not terribly diplomatic; nor was it entirely diplomatic for Moynier to single out certain National Societies as good examples, such as those of Germany, the Netherlands and Russia, implying by contrast that other national units were not (and mentioning the French and the Swedes as among those trying to emulate the better examples).Footnote 71 At times Moynier could let his righteous indignation overwhelm his sense of diplomacy, as when he chastised neutral National Societies for not caring enough about the Balkan wars compared to the Franco-Prussian war.Footnote 72
It is not clear what kind of feedback the Mother Hen articles triggered, but later issues of the journal were mostly more circumspect. However, in 1905 an unsigned piece castigated the Uruguay government for its lack of cooperation with the local National Society in an ongoing civil war.Footnote 73
Overall, while the ICRC might prod in various ways, such as by circulating questionnaires and otherwise asking if National Societies had done this or that, and while Moynier might even criticize with a tone of righteous indignation, the ICRC never sought formal authority over other RC agencies. The International Conference would pass resolutions as non-binding recommendations, and the ICRC would follow up in various ways to try to get them implemented.Footnote 74 It also manifested a right of initiative which included sending representatives sur place. For example, it decided on its own to send an observer to directly report on what was happening in the Greek-Turkish war of 1912–13.Footnote 75 It had sent an observer to the German-Danish war back in 1864. No other RC actor asked it to take such action.
Moynier continued to put his faith in the spirit of the Red Cross as an international moral code that would triumph over bellicose nationalism – at least for RC agencies. This, despite seeing clearly in the Franco-Prussian war how difficult, indeed impossible, it was for the French and Prussian aid societies to act in a neutral way. Yet he continued to insist that the Movement should be decentralized, with totally independent National Societies and with no authoritative centralized body. It was a good formula for expanding the Movement and broadening humanitarian action in piecemeal fashion. It was not a good recipe for marshalling the putative resources of the Movement for maximum independent, neutral and impartial impact, as each National Society could decide to go its own way.
Moynier's views added up to an inconsistent position, papered over by a faith in RC ideas as a moral code. He consistently saw the dangers of narrow or even bellicose nationalism by States. He wanted to believe that the very same nationalism in nations could be checked by a universal and neutral humanitarian spirit as nurtured by social elites like himself. Yet that belief was undercut by the facts of the Franco-Prussian and other wars. Certain kinds of nationalism warped nations as much as States, and Moynier noted that not just State policy but also national public opinion could be belligerent.Footnote 76 The contradiction could only be resolved by stressing the role of social elites and neutral RC actors, even as the National Societies of belligerent States largely departed from independent, neutral and impartial assistance. Consistent with this view, the relatively neutral ICRC eventually became more active in the field, as each National Society became more and more a quasi-State agency and thus subject to the pull of militarized State interests.Footnote 77
This dogged optimism, leading to shifting ICRC policies, characterized the early ICRC as a whole. In 1906, the Bulletin published an erudite essay signed by Dr Adolphe Ferrière taking issue with pessimists about the human condition like Darwin, Spencer, Hobbes and Huxley. In a book review essay about the Russian Peter Kropotkin, Ferrière argued that RC history showed evolutionary progress in social cooperation. Christian charity had evolved into global solidarity. There was a social fraternity. There was more cooperation about humanitarian assistance. Savage competition could be limited by social development.Footnote 78 And there was indeed some humanitarian progress between 1863 and 1914, due in part to the dedication and even nagging of the ICRC.
The ICRC and States
Humanitarianism and social reform were “in the air” in the North Atlantic area in the middle of the nineteenth century – witness the activities of Florence Nightingale and Clara Barton, in addition to Henry Dunant. When the ICRC got started in 1863 as a spin-off of the Geneva Society for Public Welfare, there were numerous other private groups active to improve the human condition, whether focusing on the domestic results of the industrial revolution or international war or both. There was, for example, the Order of St John of Jerusalem, which was formally integrated into the British Red Cross for a time. There was the network of the Society of Samaritans, which often interacted with RC agencies in various nations. Most States lacked broad welfare policies, and a multitude of private agencies attempted to fill the void.
From the very start, the ICRC led by Moynier sought to link what became the Movement to State approval and support. In part the early focus on the war wounded made this necessary, because such a focus required the cooperation of national military establishments. In part it happened because the lawyer Moynier and the ICRC wanted to utilize public international law to endorse their values, and it was States that made that law. And in part it happened because the ICRC and other RC actors had a positive view of the governmental role. For the ICRC and many other RC actors, they were close to State authorities and in some cases inseparable from them. In any event, Moynier and the ICRC sought to create in each State the officially recognized aid agency. This status could only be conferred by governments speaking for States. The ICRC and the rest of the Movement were successful in these objectives, but their success came with a price – and that price was not being able to push States beyond what they were then willing to accept.
By the time the Bulletin commenced publication in 1869, the embryonic ICRC had already worked closely with the Swiss State to produce an international treaty to neutralize the war wounded and those that attended them. ICRC officials were close to, and sometimes part of, the Swiss state. Moynier and Dufour were part of the Swiss State delegation that voted for the 1864 GC. Moynier represented Switzerland in various conferences devoted to social welfare public policies. General Dufour had been high in the Swiss army, and Dr Appia had consulted with it on medical matters, as had Dr Maunoir. Dunant was an outsider, but the rest of the original ICRC was not. Moreover, almost all Swiss males were citizen soldiers, subject to call-up for military duty. This Swiss pattern found an echo in many of what became the National Societies. Members of the upper classes had the time and money to devote to social welfare, and they often overlapped with political elites. There were exceptions, as per Clara Barton and the conflicted evolution of the American Red Cross. At one point the Bulletin published a list of upper-class notables who had sponsored or endorsed various RC agencies,Footnote 79 and some of these notables were also State officials. Indeed, any number of RC officials were also State officials.
RC organizations were supposed to be independent and non-political in the context of partisan and strategic politics. They were to be private rather than public/governmental. The pages of the Bulletin indicate that rigorous attention to these points was often ignored by the early ICRC, both in its own policies and in its lack of commentary about other RC units. To take just a few leading examples (in addition to Moynier and Dufour being part of the 1864 Swiss delegation that adopted the first GC), ICRC member Edouard Odier was part of the Swiss delegation to the Hague Conference of 1899 – and Swiss ambassador to Russia. The Belgian minister of war was named head of Belgium's National Society,Footnote 80 and President William Howard Taft became president of the American Red Cross. When the ICRC set up a coordinating agency in Belgrade for the Balkan war in 1912–13, it put in charge the local Swiss consular official, who remained Swiss consul general even as he put on his ICRC hat.Footnote 81 We have already noted that Moynier himself became consul general for King Leopold and his Congo Free State. The examples could be expanded ad nauseam.
Then there was the matter of States being invited to the International Conference from 1867 on. True, State attendance provided an official endorsement for the RC network, and the RC network could not advance international humanitarian law without the cooperation of States. But how could the International Conference be private and non-political when States were involved – with voting rights? The ICRC for some reason turned a blind eye to, or at least had a loose conception of, the ideas of RC independence and non-political status as a private actor. One reason was that the ICRC was too close to, and overrated the humanitarian nature of, the Swiss government. This orientation was to come back and bite the ICRC during World War II.Footnote 82
When Moynier, in particular, strategized about how to build the Movement, he often carefully calculated how to deal with States – the above confusion notwithstanding. Almost immediately after the ratification of the 1864 GC, there was an effort to revise it. Certain wording needed to be clarified, and the changing nature of warfare meant that there were victims from naval warfare, not just from land armies. A set of proposed revisions to the 1864 GC existed from 1868, but certain important States were not enthusiastic about further legal obligations in armed conflict. The ICRC frequently consulted with the Swiss government about how to proceed, or even whether to proceed, and there were sometimes differences of opinion.Footnote 83 A second GC, revising the first, was not adopted until 1906. The Bulletin sometimes recorded the view that it was unwise to antagonize governments, since they were in a position to advance or hinder RC objectivesFootnote 84 – one thus had to calculate, for example, when the time was right to seek more public law aimed at helping war victims. Moynier certainly tried to make such calculations.
Moynier could be sceptical about States, perhaps excepting the Swiss authorities in Bern. He recognized that States might indeed consent to the 1864 GC for the protection of wounded soldiers but then violate its terms. He was at least partially a political realist who understood the power of nationalism and governments’ pursuit of amoral national interests. When a newly declared State located in the Amazon basin sent a letter to the ICRC offering to ratify the 1864 GC, Moynier understood clearly that it was not about pledging support for humanitarian values but about claims to independence for a new State because of profits to be made from the area. Rather than just pass on the letter to the Swiss authorities who registered State acceptance of humanitarian treaties, Moynier used the Bulletin to expose the game for what it was.Footnote 85
The early ICRC did not want the RC network to get involved in charges of State violation of the 1864 GC, arguing that an RC role would serve no useful purpose.Footnote 86 The ICRC did get involved, not in terms of passing judgment but in terms of publishing claims and denials in the Bulletin. The initial caution proved well founded. For a time, the Bulletin published charges and counter-charges arising from various wars, with no apparent benefit to anyone. It eventually stopped the practice at some point after the present era of study.Footnote 87
Moynier, however, did not hesitate to call out at considerable length the Ottomans for their violations of the 1864 GC in the war with Russia during 1876–78, especially after the first phase of that war, during a long truce.Footnote 88 In this he was reflecting the widespread European view that the Ottoman Empire was the sick man of Europe (it followed that the Turkish Red Crescent was also sick, which it was for much of the time). Moynier was much more critical of the Ottomans than about other parties to the conflict (including Serbia and Montenegro), whose records under the 1864 GC were not perfect, so there was some bias on the part of the ICRC against the Turks. Much later, the ICRC (i.e., Moynier) somewhat defensively tried to justify this tilt by saying that the events in question were uncontested.Footnote 89 It was also the case that the victims of some Turkish behaviour were Christians from Russia and the Balkan areas.Footnote 90
As the Franco-Prussian war unfolded, Moynier wrote a personal essay advocating the establishment of an international court to resolve claims about war crimes. He thought world public opinion would sustain such a court's judgments. He was affected by the Alabama claims arbitration stemming from the American Civil War, a successful arbitration panel that sat in Geneva. He even drafted a statute for such a court.Footnote 91 But this was not a formal proposal in the name of the ICRC, and this personal thinking-out-loud did not result in concrete developments; States were not ready for such action. Later, with more experience, Moynier still recognized the need for an authoritative court to enforce humanitarian law, but he concluded that such a body was unattainable because States would not consent to it. They would not use arbitration or judicial settlement concerning themselves and the laws of war. Moynier then rethought his earlier optimism about courts; at best, he wrote, maybe some kind of mock court could educate.Footnote 92 Nevertheless, he retained a strong belief in the role of international law, and he helped establish – and was active in – the Institute for International Law, originally based in Ghent.
In general, the ICRC and Moynier tried to be careful about projecting RC activity into situations where a key State was opposed. In the various Boer wars in southern Africa around the turn of the century, before any Boer State was formally recognized by other States, the ICRC was careful to obtain the consent of the United Kingdom before encouraging RC assistance from the Netherlands or elsewhere.Footnote 93
To cite another example of this caution, the Spanish Red Cross wanted the ICRC to act on behalf of Spanish citizens who had been taken prisoner during the fighting between rebels and the United States – the new sovereign in the Philippines after the Spanish-American War of 1898. Washington was predictably unenthusiastic about this outside involvement, especially by Spanish sources, and so was the ICRC. The ICRC (i.e., Moynier) declined to get involved on a variety of grounds: that the RC network should concentrate on the war wounded and not on all the ills that might arise from fighting (even though RC actors were already involved in all sorts of activities pertaining to prisoners of war (PoWs), natural disasters, etc.); that previous inquiries had not led anywhere, either with the American Red Cross or the rebels; and that only the US government could say what démarches might be allowed given the demands of military necessity.Footnote 94 Since part of the ICRC's position did not accord with the facts, namely that RC actors should concentrate only on the war wounded, it was fairly clear that Moynier did not want to run the risk of irritating the United States through further action.
In general, the ICRC was mostly deferential to States despite some scepticism about their policies, and Moynier was reluctant to have the RC involved in civil wars, which were not covered by the 1864 GC, during this era. He explicitly refused involvement in a civil war in Uruguay.Footnote 95 He tried to distinguish national uprisings and responses by a National Society, as in Spain during the Carlist unrest, from ICRC involvement as part of an international RC response. He was opposed to the latter in civil wars.
On the other hand, the American Red Cross and other RC actors jumped into the controversy in Turkey about the Armenians circa 1905. The ICRC, too, joined in the international chorus of criticism about Turkish policies. As already noted, most sectors of European opinion did not think highly of the declining Ottoman Empire, and in this case the ICRC showed little respect for Turkish sovereignty and domestic jurisdiction. Of course, the Armenians were considered to be Christian, which figured into the mix of motivations by some outsiders. There was a pattern of Europeans engaging in “humanitarian intervention” when it was a matter of Christian victims of the Ottoman Empire, whether in Greece, Bulgaria, Lebanon or Anatolia.Footnote 96
Over time the ICRC became well known to States because of practical and legal activity related to wars and other situations involving violence. It achieved considerable status in diplomatic circles. Moynier was named honorary president of the 1906 diplomatic conference for revision of the first GC. The price for this status was a continued caution or conservatism in the ICRC's policies. The ICRC proved reluctant to vigorously push States further than they wanted to go, at least in public diplomacy. It developed a long-term view, always hoping for future progress via cooperation with States even if the pressing issues of the moment went unresolved because of State non-cooperation.
Future research
The Bulletin is a rich source of material about the ICRC from its early days to World War I, and already this essay is longer than originally intended. In this section I briefly mention a few points drawn only from this era that seemed important, but for which space and time compel me to omit full discussion and documentation.
From the Bulletin it is clear that the ICRC was extremely dedicated and serious about its work. Dr Ferrière authored a series of essays reviewing the literature on military medicine, and this series seems thorough and well informed. It would be interesting to know how much such efforts in the Bulletin led to improved medical practices, both in the RC network and among national military units. There was a prodigious amount of reading and translating done by various members of the ICRC related to wounded soldiers and other war victims. What impact did it have?
Relatedly, one theme evident in the Bulletin was how to get wounded soldiers off the battlefield quickly and on to proximate medical treatment. There were articles and drawings about stretchers carried in different ways – on bicycles, on pack animals, in mountainous terrain, on skis, on sleds, by vehicles, in train cars; with the injured sitting up rather than lying down; with the battlefield lighted up at night by new lamps; with different types of surgical field hospitals. I thought at one point that if I read one more essay about stretchers, I would collapse and need one myself. More seriously, it would be interesting to know if this concern by RC actors, coordinated and spread by the ICRC, was ahead of the curve of knowledge in national military circles, and if the published material actually improved the treatment of victims. Did anyone pay attention to the Bulletin on this important subject?
Did other members of the ICRC, or the Movement for that matter, express any concern or try to control in any way the evident personal biases of Moynier? He clearly did not like Henry Dunant, and when Dunant shared the first Nobel Peace Prize in 1901, the Bulletin published a churlish article pointing out that Moynier had really developed the ICRC and pushed the RC network forward, winning a prize from a French organization for his efforts. Moynier clearly favoured Clara Barton and publicly took her side when there was a brouhaha in the American Red Cross over leadership issues circa 1904. She was a friend of the ICRC, and the Bulletin gave more space to her death in 1912 than it had to Dunant's in 1910. But she was not a superb administrator, and the finances of the American Red Cross were not in order. Those trying to get her to retire had some valid reasons. The articles in the Bulletin took her side in a needless and heavy-handed way. For that matter, Moynier said such nice things about the American Red Cross – favourable comments not found in the Bulletin about any other National Society – that one might wonder why he developed such views. At one point Moynier saw the Americans as the new and powerful leaders of Christian civilization.Footnote 97 Yet he knew of brutal US policies in the Philippines, because he mentioned them in the journal.
Early on it became clear that the Movement would focus on more than just the war wounded in international war. The National Societies needed something to do in peacetime besides think about the next war, and many of them were already active regarding national and international responses to natural disasters when recognized by the ICRC. For example, some RC units were active regarding industrial accidents. Dr Ferrière of the ICRC wrote about those rejected by the military because of mental health problems, and the lack of attention to that kind of health issue. Concern for the wounded fairly quickly led to interest in PoWs, refugees and other victims. When the ICRC set up an agency in Basel in 1870 to coordinate aid for wounded soldiers in the Franco-Prussian war, it collected information about PoWs. By 1913, Dr Ferrière was prescient in saying that attention to PoWs in the future would greatly augment the RC's good deeds. As early as 1909, the Bulletin used the general phrase “suffering humanity” to refer to RC concerns. Does the ICRC and/or the Movement have a particular focus or niche? Are there limits to ICRC and RC concern about individuals in dire straits? Where does the RC focus stop? Is there a debilitating “mission creep”?Footnote 98
It was evident that much of the actual work done by RC units was done by women. In a few cases the National Society was led by a woman, such as Clara Barton and then Mabel Boardman in the American Red Cross. Mostly the pattern was male leadership but with a heavy reliance on female staff. There was even the occasional remark, including by the Queen of England, about RC work being women's work. Some national RC units were virtually all female, such as France's Union des Dames and Association des Dames. Why was it, then, that all of the attention to, and recognition of, women in the Bulletin had no apparent impact on the ICRC, which had no female members on the top board during 1863–1917? Given this absence, it was ironic that an ICRC report in 1913 noted that the Serbs had failed to utilize women effectively in their National Society and health services, compared to some other Balkan organizations.
There are many other interesting points to be raised from reading the early days of the Bulletin, but not all readers of this article may be ICRC junkies – so perhaps it is time to stop for now.
Conclusion
Some readers may think I have been too critical about the ICRC, and particularly Moynier, for the period under review. In this regard I relate two personal anecdotes. I saw one internal ICRC document some years ago that referred to me as a friend of the organization – which was accurate. I also recall what one former ICRC official said to me – namely, that one has to do the objective analysis before one can praise.
There are several ICRC assertions about RC history in the Bulletin that are actually true. One of these was that the ICRC was the gearbox in the RC machinery. The ICRC and particularly Moynier were committed to limiting the destruction of war and dogged in their pursuit of that objective, with the very demanding goal of building an RC network recognized as the universal and official aid institution – initially for situations of violence. Two treaties on humanitarian law were concluded in 1864 and 1906, thus laying a big part of the foundation for what is today widely called international humanitarian law. The ICRC was deeply involved in both treaties and mostly responsible for the first. The ICRC and especially Moynier achieved a great deal in the era reviewed, all of which was then followed up by other ICRC leaders in subsequent eras. There is a lot to be proud of in the historical record up to World War I.
The fact that the ICRC and Moynier were indeed proud, and brimming with amour propre, and that as human beings they were imperfect and made mistakes common to their times, is simply part of the record. Subsequent eras are equally interesting, and the Bulletin and then the International Review of the Red Cross got much better. But that is grist for a future mill.
