On 24 June 1859, during the War of Italian Unification, Franco-Sardinian forces clashed with Austrian troops near the small town of Solferino in northern Italy.
On that day, businessman Henry Dunant, of Switzerland, was travelling to the area to meet Napoleon III on personal matters. On the evening of the battle, Dunant arrived in the village of Castiglione, where more than 9,000 wounded had taken refuge. In the main church, the Chiesa Maggiore, where thousands were lying unattended, Dunant and the local women strove for several days and nights to give them water, wash and dress their wounds and hand out tobacco, tea and fruit.
In 1862 Dunant published a work entitled ‘A Memory of Solferino'. In it he proposed two ideas for alleviating the suffering of wounded soldiers - the creation of relief societies in each country that would act as auxiliaries to the army medical services, and a legal basis that would oblige armies to care for all wounded whichever side they were on.
The Geneva Public Welfare Society established a committee to consider ways of putting Dunant's ideas into practice. It met for the first time on 17 February 1863, with Dunant as secretary. The other members were General Guillaume-Henri Dufour, the lawyer Gustave Moynier, and Drs Louis Appia and Théodore Maunoir.
In October of that year this committee, later to become the International Committee of the Red Cross, organised a conference, inviting governments, organisations and prominent individuals to attend. The conference led directly to the creation of the first national relief bodies whose members were to wear an armlet showing a red cross on a white ground.
At the urging of the Geneva Committee, the Swiss government hosted an official diplomatic conference in August 1864. This resulted in the adoption of the Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field.
In a relatively short time both of Dunant's proposals had been actioned. By 1914 the International Committee of the Red Cross had gained field experience and the Geneva Convention had been adapted to cover warfare at sea.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies was founded in 1919 in Paris in the aftermath of the First World War.
The war had shown a need for close cooperation between Red Cross Societies, which, through their humanitarian activities on behalf of prisoners of war and combatants, had attracted millions of volunteers and built a large body of expertise.
It was Henry Davison, president of the American Red Cross War Committee, who proposed forming a federation of these National Societies. An international medical conference initiated by Davison resulted in the birth of the League of Red Cross Societies, which was renamed in October 1983 to the League of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, and then in November 1991 to become the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
The first objective of the Federation was to improve the health of people in countries that had suffered greatly during the four years of war. Its goals were to strengthen and unite, for health activities, already-existing Red Cross Societies and to promote the creation of new Societies.
The International Federation manages or supports programmes in more than 150 countries. These programmes assist millions of the world's most vulnerable people, including victims of natural and other disasters, refugees and displaced people and those affected by socio-economic problems.
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