Henri developed a great interest in religious
youth society work, often visiting the prisons and helping the poor.
1849 Age 21Yrs.
He left Secondary school he was attending College
Calvin, and joined a money lending firm, Lullin et Sautter, as an apprentice. He had not
been an outstanding student except for his social attitude.
1852 Age
24 Yrs.
He organised the Geneva branch of the YMCA
helping the Calvanists.
1854 Age 26Yrs.
Dunan became a representative of the firm, ‘’Colonies de Sétif ’, and visited
Algeria, Tunis and Sicily. The Directorate was highly pleased with his performance in
spite of being a raw hand. It was such a memorable experience for the young
man that he compiled a book, An Account of the Regency in Tunis.
1856
Age 28Yrs.
He floated a company for business enterprises in
foreign colonies, Financial and Industrial Company of
Mons-Djémila Mills, to deal with growing, milling and trading of corn.
1858 Age 30 Yrs.
He published the book including a chapter on ‘Slavery among
the Mohammedans and in the United States of America’.
1859 Age 31Yrs.
His
company had great success and he was elected the chairman. It had a capital
of 100,000,000 Swiss francs. He obtained land for the purpose of growing corn
from the French-Algeria. The extent of the land and the water rights were not
clearly defined. As the authorities were of not much help, he decided to meet
the French emperor Napolean III. At this juncture Napoleon was engaged in
assisting Italians to drive the Austrians out of
Italy.
In the evening of 24th June as he was approaching
Solferino, in Northern Italy, he
witnessed a horrible sight. The battle field was a blood bath. Thousands lay
wounded. Amongst the lifeless bodies, scattered some shivered and screamed in
agonising pain. Nobody cared a damn.
Dunant deeply shocked immediately set down to
alleviate the sufferings of the wounded. He got volunteers from the local
population to help him. The action
spread and quite a number, especially from the fair sex were helping the
dying and the wounded irrespective of their nationalities.. He spent his
money to purchase first aid equipment and even helped to erect medical
centres. He also got some Austrian Doctors imprisoned by the French released for medical and surgical aid.
1862 Age 34 Yrs.
As an
aftermath, he published ‘A Memory of
Solferino’. The book consisted of three sections. The first
one described the raging battle. The second dealt with the bleeding
wounds, and the misery resulted by the war effort. It also proposed a plan,
at least to ease the acute suffering of the victims.
• The nations of the world should form relief
societies to provide care for the wartime wounded. • Each society should be sponsored by a governing
board composed of the nation's leading figures. • The society should appeal to everyone to
volunteer, • The society should train these volunteers to
aid the wounded on the battlefield and to care for them later until they
recovered.”
With the release of this book Dunant became
popular almost overnight. Geneva Society for public welfare appointed a five
man committee along with Dunant, to study and implement this action plan.
This committee decided to summon an International Conference. Dunant traveled far and wide, spending his wealth, to meet government authorities requesting
them to send
delegates.
The conference was held from October 26 to 29th
in Geneva. It was there that the ‘RED CROSS' was
chosen as the emblem of the movement. The clauses upheld at the convention
included, provision for the Red Cross volunteers to work in a neutral manner
when there are clashes and to provide them with the urgently required medical
supplies. Twelve nations became signatories to this treaty which came to be
known as the ‘Geneva
Convention’.
Dunant had almost achieved his dream but he was
not content. His ambition was to serve not one country or one nation but to
wipe out or at least minimize the pain, agony and anguish from those who are
suffering all over the globe. He sacrificed everything he could, his wealth,
time, skills and influence in an effort to reach this goal. It was a highly
passionate act of humanitarianism.
After war wounded has been taken care of, his
attention was drawn towards the casualties from the natural disasters such as
floods and earth quakes. He introduced some plans for the prevention of
clashes too. One suggestion was to establish a neutral state in Palestine to
prevent the clashes there.
1867 Age 39 Yrs.
Being a writer and a man of letters, he also had
plans to protect and publicize literary masterpieces of not one nation or one
country but of the entire mankind. It was to this end that, he proposed
to collect the literary heritage of the world into a, “Universal Library”.
[Although
this idea did not materialize, something similar has been evolved in the
modern society as the Super Highway or the ‘Internet’]
1872 Age
44 Yrs.
He
summoned an International Conference on the handling of prisoners of war and
to settle disputes between nations which would have made, according to him,
war between nations
superfluous.
Dunant was completely immersed in the
humanitarian activities that his business empire crashed with little warning.
He could not get the water rights for his massive land development project.
The failure of his ventures badly affected a number of his friends.
A millionaire, philanthropist and a super civic
minded citizen, suddenly got bogged down to the state of a beggar. The Geneva Society abhorred him, and as such he had no
alternative but to depart.
1875 Age
47Yrs.
Any other person would have even committed
suicide, but Dunant simply walked away. The next fifteen years. he led the
life of a loafer. “There were times”, he has said, “When I had to
dine on a crust of bread, blacken my coat with ink, whiten my collar with
chalk, and sleep out of doors”.
1890 Age
62Yrs.
A teacher named Wilhelm Sonderegger joyously
screamed that the missing man had been found in a small Swiss village of
Heiden. Not a soul heard him. Not a society cared for the man; not even the ICRC. In the eyes of the Swiss, Jean Henry
Dunant was a good for nothing, bankrupt, old codger. When he became feeble
and fell ill an unknown Samaritan moved him, into a hospice. In this place,
devoted for terminally ill poor patients, in Room no 12 he became an inmate
for the rest of his life; which lasted eighteen years.
1895 Age 67Yrs.
Probably due to some change of planetary
positions, the world realized his existence. He was old, physically week and
mentally fallen, when the society acclaimed him as a hero. The
influential people, news media heaped praise upon him. Some organizations
became popular by presenting him with awards and donations.
1901 Age 73Yrs.
The Swedish Academy too made use of the
opportunity and selected him along with Frederick
Passy of France, to share the first ever Nobel Prize for Peace in
1901. Neither a kind request from the officials nor vehement appeals by
well-wishers could dislodge him from Room
no 12, where he had decided to terminate his life…
1910 Age 82Yrs.
On 30th October he ended his life peacefully.
According to his wishes he was buried without a ceremony. Later it was
discovered that he had not used any of the prize money for himself. He had
left some for those who had cared for him in the hospital. He had gifted a
free bed in the hospital for the poor. The remainder was gifted to
charity .
Thus ended the life of the man who bled
his heart to paint the Red Cross on a white garb. As he was a Christian let us
pray, “May his soul rest in peace”
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