The Man Who Changed How the World Cares: Henry Dunant, the Red Cross, and Switzerland's Enduring Gift to Humanity

Switzerland has shaped the world far more than its geography would suggest. From global finance to diplomacy and international law, Swiss influence runs deep. But arguably no single Swiss contribution has touched more lives, across more borders and more generations, than the one begun by a young Genevan businessman who happened upon a battlefield and could not look away.

That man was Henry Dunant (1828–1910), founder of the International Red Cross and the first ever recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. His story — of extraordinary vision, devastating setback, quiet redemption, and lasting legacy — is not just history. It is a living framework that continues to shape humanitarian action, international law, and Swiss identity to this day.

A Genevan Son and the Road to Solferino

Jean-Henri Dunant was born on 8 May 1828 in Geneva into a devout Calvinist family. His parents were active in charitable work — his father helped orphans and parolees; his mother cared for the sick and the poor. From an early age, Dunant absorbed the belief that social responsibility was a duty, not an option. At eighteen, he joined the Geneva Society for Almsgiving and founded a circle of friends who met to study the Bible and assist the poor. In 1852 he established the Geneva chapter of the YMCA and played a key role in building its international organisation.

He also pursued business. He held commercial interests in French Algeria and Tunisia, venturing into grain trading and mill construction. In 1859, facing obstacles with colonial authorities over water and land rights, he resolved to appeal directly to French Emperor Napoleon III — tracking the Emperor down as he campaigned in northern Italy during the Austro-Sardinian War.

Dunant arrived near the small town of Solferino on the evening of 24 June 1859. That very day, one of the bloodiest battles of the 19th century had been fought there. Some 40,000 soldiers lay wounded, dying, or dead — with virtually no organised medical care.

What he saw changed everything.

"Tutti Fratelli" — The Birth of an Idea

Dunant abandoned his original purpose and threw himself into action. He rallied local civilian volunteers — particularly women and girls from nearby villages — and together they set up makeshift hospitals in churches, barns, and homes. He organised the purchase of supplies. When battlefield surgeons were captured, he negotiated their release.

His guiding rallying cry, borrowed from the women of Castiglione delle Stiviere, was "Tutti fratelli" — "All are brothers." Care was extended without regard to uniform. French, Austrian, Sardinian — it did not matter. Wounded men were wounded men, and they all deserved help.

This was the seed of everything that followed: a conviction that humanity transcends nationality, and that organised compassion can be deployed even — especially — on the battlefield.

A Memory of Solferino — and a Committee Founded

Returning to Geneva in July 1859, Dunant wrote down what he had witnessed in a book titled Un Souvenir de Solferino (A Memory of Solferino), published in 1862. It described the battle's horrors in graphic detail, but more importantly, it proposed two revolutionary ideas:

1. The creation of voluntary relief societies in every country to care for wounded soldiers in wartime.

2. An international agreement to grant neutrality and legal protection to medical personnel and the wounded.

Dunant distributed the book to political and military leaders across Europe. At the Geneva Society for Public Welfare, president Gustave Moynier brought Dunant's proposals before a meeting on 9 February 1863. A five-person committee was formed to act on the ideas, and Dunant was named as a member. The other four were Moynier, Swiss army general Henri Dufour, and physicians Louis Appia and Théodore Maunoir. Their first meeting on 17 February 1863 is recognised as the founding date of what became the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Under the committee's initiative, a diplomatic conference convened by the Swiss government culminated on 22 August 1864 in the signing of the First Geneva Convention by twelve nations — the foundational treaty of modern international humanitarian law. The red cross on a white background — the inverse of the Swiss flag — was adopted as the protective emblem.

The ICRC remains headquartered in Geneva to this day. It employs more than 15,000 staff worldwide, operates in over 60 countries, and maintains a budget exceeding CHF 1.5 billion.

Bankruptcy, Exile, and Obscurity

Dunant's personal fortunes tell a far more complex story. His business ventures in Algeria unravelled. In April 1867, the financial firm Crédit Genevois collapsed, taking Dunant with it. Declared bankrupt in Calvinist Geneva — a city built on probity — the scandal was devastating. His family and friends were ruined as well.

Under pressure from Moynier, who now saw Dunant as impractical, Dunant resigned from the International Committee in August 1867. He left Geneva in disgrace and did not return for the rest of his life.

The next decades brought poverty and wandering. Dunant lived in Paris, Stuttgart, Rome, Corfu, Basel, Karlsruhe, and London. Yet his ideas never stopped flowing: disarmament conventions, international courts, a world archive of knowledge — a concept that later surfaced in UNESCO. He advocated for women's rights and continued to write.

Despite his central role in creating it, he became almost entirely forgotten by the Red Cross movement even as it expanded across the globe.

Rediscovery and the First Nobel Peace Prize

Dunant's rehabilitation began almost accidentally. In September 1895, Swiss journalist Georg Baumberger met the elderly Dunant on a walk in the resort village of Heiden in eastern Switzerland, where Dunant had settled in a nursing home. Baumberger's article — "Henri Dunant, the Founder of the Red Cross" — was published in a German illustrated magazine and reprinted across Europe. Dunant was rediscovered.

In 1901, Dunant was awarded the first-ever Nobel Peace Prize, sharing it with French pacifist Frédéric Passy. The Nobel Committee's decision set a defining precedent: the prize could recognise humanitarian work that strengthened the "brotherhood of peoples," not only the direct promotion of peace.

The prize money — 104,000 Swiss Francs — was protected from creditors by Dr Hans Daae, a Norwegian physician who had advocated for Dunant's case. Dunant himself never spent any of it, living simply and reserving the money for bequests to his caregivers and charitable causes in his will.

Henry Dunant died on 30 October 1910 in Heiden at the age of 82. He requested a simple burial — no speeches, no fanfare. Yet his legacy had already outgrown any mortal measure.

The Seven Principles of the Red Cross

What endures is a moral philosophy. In 1965, the 20th International Conference formally proclaimed the Seven Fundamental Principles that govern the movement:

• Humanity. Prevent and alleviate human suffering wherever it is found. Protect life, health, and human dignity.

• Impartiality. No discrimination based on nationality, race, religion, class, or politics. Relief goes to those who need it most.

• Neutrality. Take no sides in hostilities. Access to all sides is preserved so the work can continue.

• Independence. While national societies may assist their governments, they must maintain autonomy to act on Red Cross principles.

• Voluntary Service. Driven by a desire to help, not by personal gain.

• Unity. Only one Red Cross or Red Crescent Society per country, open to all.

• Universality. All societies share equal status and a shared duty to help one another. The movement is genuinely worldwide.

These are operational disciplines, not rhetoric. They are why the ICRC can walk into a prison in Myanmar, a detention camp in the Sahel, or a besieged quarter in Ukraine — not as a partisan actor, but as a trusted, neutral intermediary.

The Red Cross Today — Swiss Identity on the Global Stage

For the Swiss-British business community, the Red Cross is perhaps the purest expression of Swiss soft power. Geneva is not just the seat of the ICRC; it is home to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, and to roughly 40 international organisations that model their governance on Swiss neutrality.

The ICRC itself has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize three times — in 1917, 1944, and 1963 — an unmatched record. Today it visits detainees, restores family links, provides emergency medical services, monitors compliance with international humanitarian law, and delivers aid in active war zones — — all underpinned by the Geneva Conventions.

British businesses have long understood the value of operating within a framework of trust and long-term relationships. The Anglo-Swiss tradition of civic philanthropy and international governance, and the belief that commerce and compassion are not opposites but partners, finds one of its purest expressions in Dunant's legacy.

Lesser-Known Facts About Dunant

• Dunant held French citizenship from 1859 in addition to his Swiss citizenship.

• Moynier, his committee colleague, actively used his influence to block honours from reaching Dunant during his years of obscurity — including redirecting a World's Fair prize so the cash went to the committee rather than to him personally.

• Dunant was expelled from the YMCA he founded in Geneva because his bankruptcy was seen as tainting the movement.

• In Heiden, a young woman named Susanna Sonderegger founded the local Red Cross branch — with Dunant as honorary president. Her family championed his legacy long after his death.

• He wrote a book praising Napoleon III to gain an audience with the Emperor. He arrived to find a battlefield. He went home with a humanitarian mission instead.

• The Henry Dunant Museum in Heiden preserves his modest room much as he left it: austere, unadorned, entirely in keeping with the man who requested no funeral oration.

A Legacy That Outlasts the Man

Henry Dunant's life was not a triumphant arc in the conventional sense. It was a story of brilliance and failure, obscurity and vindication, personal ruin and world-changing impact. He died with almost no money, in a small Swiss village most people had never heard of. And yet the organisation he helped create has saved more lives than perhaps any other institution in human history.

For a Swiss-British readership, there is a resonant lesson here. The British Red Cross was founded in 1870, one of the earliest national societies. The two nations' shared tradition of civic responsibility finds one of its purest expressions in the story of a businessman who went to meet an emperor, found a battlefield instead, and decided that humanity was worth organising around.

It belongs not just to Switzerland, but to all of us.

The International Committee of the Red Cross remains headquartered in Geneva. Learn more at [icrc.org](https://www.icrc.org).