Henri Dunant

Henri Dunant
(1828-1910)


Swiss humanitarian, founder of the Red Cross (now Red Cross and Red Crescent), a founder of the World's Young Men's Christian Association, and cowinner of the first Nobel Prize for Peace, in 1901.
An eyewitness of the Battle of Solferino (June 24, 1859), which resulted in nearly 40,000 casualties, Dunant organized emergency aid services for the Austrian and French wounded. In Un Souvenir de Solferino (1862), he proposed the formation in all countries of voluntary relief societies for the prevention and alleviation of suffering in war and peacetime, without distinction of race or creed; he also proposed an international agreement covering the war wounded. In 1864, the year he founded the Red Cross, the first national societies and the first Geneva Convention came into being.

Having gone bankrupt because he neglected his business affairs, Dunant left Geneva in 1867 and spent most of the rest of his life in poverty and obscurity. He continued to promote interest in the treatment of prisoners of war, the abolition of slavery, international arbitration, disarmament, and the establishment of a Jewish homeland. After he was "rediscovered" by a journalist at Heiden, Switz., in 1895, Dunant received many honours and annuities, including the first Nobel Prize for Peace.