On the Geneva Convention of 1864 : in relation to the aid afforded by volunteer societies to sick and wounded soldiers during the late Franco-German War, with a glance at the proper functions of national aid societies, particularly the British Aid Society, in the future : a lecture delivered at the Royal United Service Institution.

  • Longmore, Sir Thomas, 1816-1895.
Date:
[1872]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the Geneva Convention of 1864 : in relation to the aid afforded by volunteer societies to sick and wounded soldiers during the late Franco-German War, with a glance at the proper functions of national aid societies, particularly the British Aid Society, in the future : a lecture delivered at the Royal United Service Institution. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    by, the terms of the German Convention ? Quotation of a few of the published replies to one of the Society's questions will at once settle this point. Question, No. 12, is:—Would it have been possible to have come to the aid of the sick and wounded, as has been done in this war, without the facilities afforded by the Convention ? Here are some of the answers. Not to the same extent, if at all.* No.t The Convention of Geneva has undoubtedly facilitated the aid afforded to sick and wounded in the late war; and this aid could not have been so effectually rendered without it.J I am of opinion that it was owing to the facilities afforded by the Convention alone, that any effectual aid has been rendered by the National Society in the war.§ Free locomotion in war time must always be difficult, and it would have been stdl more so had not the Articles of the Convention entitled all members of Red Cross Societies to circulate anywhere where their doing so did not interfere with military precautions or operations. The extent to which this was permitted may be inferred from the fact that newspaper correspondents frequently got attached to foreign ambulances so as to have the privilege of wearing their brassard, and penetrating where, as civilians, they would have been unable to reach.|| Most certainly not. ^[ Utterly impossible.** These replies sufficiently prove that the officers and gentlemen who were acting under the directions of the British Aid-Society conceived that the Geneva Convention covered them with neutrality and protec- tion, and that the Convention established a sort of right to administer help to the sick and wounded soldiers of the contending armies. Indeed, I need not rely upon the replies to the question which I have quoted, I may point to the whole series of replies to the questions put forth by the Society in proof of the universal prevalence of this belief among the respondents. One gentleman who was actively engaged in tbe work of the society informed me, on his return to England, that on one occasion, when he had been placed under temporary arrest by certain officers of the German Army besieging Metz, he had threatened to bring down upon them the interference of the British Government, his right to this interference being grounded on the Geneva Inter- national Convention of 1864. This is only one among many ways in 'which the mistaken supposition that the privilege of inviolability of person is conferred by the Geneva Convention on private gentlemen ad mg under the orders of an independent foreign society may lead to difficulties, but it serves to indicate how necessary it is that the nature of the Convention should be well understood, and its Articles rightly interpreted. I formerly explained in this theatre the meaning attached to each article of the Convention by those whose business it had been to con- sider and define the terms of the Convention, but perhaps I did not enterge enough on the limitations of the Convention in the particular direction I am now revievving.tt Still I pointed to the fact that the * Captain II. Brackenbury, R.A. f Seven Respondents givo this reply. X Colonel Cox, C.B. § Colonel Elphinstone. il Mr. Austin Lee. % Captain Norman. ** Dr. John Murray, ft See Journal of the Institution, vol. x, page 162, el seq.—Eu. '