The Daily Feather — The Humanitarian Battle of Solferino

Never before were the life-altering sacrifices of soldiers so richly recognized by the offering of aid. On June 24, 1859, Franco-Sardinian and Austrian forces engaged near the small Lombardian village of Solferino in what would be the final battle to unify an independent Italy. As fate held, Swiss businessman Henry Dunant’s travels took him through the small village buckling under the strain of aftermath of fighting which had left 40,000 troops dead, wounded, or missing. Three years later, Dunant published A Memory of Solferino, an impassioned plea to establish national relief organizations to assist wounded soldiers regardless of whose side they’d fought for. Within a year, a Swiss-based group he’d spearheaded had become the International Committee of the Red Cross. To this day, the symbol adopted of a red cross on a white background, an inverse of the Swiss flag, identifies medical workers on the battlefield. Sadly, Dunant’s finances took a turn for the worse, forcing him to declare bankruptcy in 1867 and resign from the Red Cross. That didn’t stop his being awarded the first-ever Nobel Prize in 1901, accompanied by this citation: “Without you, the Red Cross, the supreme humanitarian achievement of the nineteenth century would probably have never been undertaken.”

After 160 years of service, through a multitude of global economic upheavals, it would seem that this time even Durant’s vision will not be spared in the latest financial crisis. On Friday, the Red Cross announced that due to funding shortfalls, it would be eliminating 1,500 jobs and closing at least 20 of its 350 worldwide locations to cut nearly $500 million in costs.