In 1859, a Swiss businessman named Henry Dunant traveled to northern Italy for what was supposed to be a business meeting.

Instead, he walked into the aftermath of a battle that would change his life—and eventually change the way the world responded to suffering during war.

On June 24, 1859, French and Sardinian forces fought the Austrian army near the small town of Solferino in northern Italy. The Battle of Solferino was enormous, involving hundreds of thousands of soldiers and leaving tens of thousands dead, wounded, or missing by the time the fighting ended.

Dunant arrived in the area shortly afterward.

What he saw horrified him.

Thousands of wounded soldiers lay across fields, roads, churches, barns, and nearby villages. Military medical services were completely overwhelmed. There were too few doctors, too few supplies, and far too many wounded men waiting for help.

Many had been left where they had fallen.

Others had somehow made their way into nearby communities, where churches and public buildings were quickly transformed into makeshift hospitals. Soldiers from opposing armies lay beside one another, bleeding, suffering, and waiting for care that might never come.

Dunant was not a doctor.

He was not a soldier.

And he had not traveled to Italy to become involved in a war.

But he could not simply walk away.

In the nearby town of Castiglione delle Stiviere, Dunant began helping local residents organize care for the wounded. Women from the town brought water, food, bandages, and whatever supplies they could find. Dunant helped coordinate volunteers and encouraged them to care for every wounded soldier they encountered, regardless of which army he had fought for.

The idea was captured in a simple phrase associated with the volunteers:

“Tutti fratelli.”

All are brothers.

French soldiers, Austrian soldiers, Italians—it did not matter.

If someone was wounded, he needed help.

That idea seems obvious today.

In 1859, it was revolutionary.

War had traditionally divided people into enemies and allies. Dunant began imagining something different: what if there were trained volunteers whose job was not to fight, but to care for the wounded on every side?

What if those volunteers were protected?

And what if nations agreed, before wars even began, that wounded soldiers and the people treating them should be considered neutral?

The scenes at Solferino stayed with Dunant long after he returned home to Geneva.

He could not forget the wounded men lying unattended.

He could not forget the overwhelmed hospitals.

And he could not forget how much suffering might have been prevented if an organized system had already existed.

So he wrote about it.

In 1862, Dunant published a book called A Memory of Solferino. In it, he described what he had witnessed on the battlefield and proposed two ideas.

The first was that countries should establish volunteer relief organizations during peacetime so that trained people would be ready to care for wounded soldiers when war began.

The second was even more ambitious: governments should create an international agreement protecting wounded soldiers and the people providing medical care to them.

The book attracted attention across Europe.

In Geneva, Dunant’s ideas caught the interest of several influential men associated with the Geneva Society for Public Welfare. In 1863, Dunant joined Gustave Moynier, General Guillaume-Henri Dufour, Dr. Louis Appia, and Dr. Théodore Maunoir to form what became known as the Committee of Five.

That small group would eventually become the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Representatives from several countries gathered in Geneva later that year to discuss how Dunant’s ideas might work in practice. They considered how volunteer medical organizations could operate, how wounded soldiers should be treated, and how medical personnel could be identified and protected on the battlefield.

They also needed a symbol.

It had to be simple.

It had to be visible from a distance.

And it had to be recognized by armies from different countries.

The emblem they adopted was a red cross on a white background.

Its connection to Switzerland was deliberate.

The Swiss flag is a white cross on a red background. The new humanitarian emblem reversed those colors—a tribute to the country where the movement had begun.

One year later, an even more important step was taken.

In August 1864, representatives of twelve governments met in Geneva and signed the first Geneva Convention.

Its full title concerned improving the condition of wounded soldiers in armies in the field, but its central principle was simple: soldiers who were wounded or sick should be cared for regardless of which side they belonged to, and the medical personnel treating them should be protected.

For the first time, nations had formally agreed to international rules designed specifically to reduce suffering during war.

A movement that had begun with one man walking through the aftermath of a battlefield was becoming part of international law.

Over time, the original agreement expanded.

Additional Geneva Conventions were created to protect wounded soldiers at sea, prisoners of war, and civilians caught in armed conflict. The rules evolved dramatically as warfare changed, but the central principle remained: even war must have limits.

The Red Cross movement grew as well.

National Red Cross and Red Crescent societies were created around the world, providing humanitarian assistance during wars, natural disasters, emergencies, and other crises. The International Committee of the Red Cross remained based in Geneva, maintaining the Swiss connection that had existed from the very beginning.

But Henry Dunant’s own life did not follow the same successful path as the movement he helped create.

His business ventures collapsed, leaving him bankrupt. He became increasingly isolated and eventually left Geneva. For years, the man whose ideas had inspired an international humanitarian movement lived largely in poverty and obscurity.

The Red Cross continued growing without him.

Only much later did the world rediscover Dunant’s role in its creation.

In 1901, more than forty years after the Battle of Solferino, Henry Dunant became one of the first recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize, sharing the inaugural award with French peace activist Frédéric Passy.

By then, the ideas Dunant had once imagined while surrounded by wounded soldiers had spread far beyond Switzerland.

Today, the International Committee of the Red Cross is still headquartered in Geneva. The Geneva Conventions remain among the foundations of international humanitarian law, establishing protections for people who are not—or are no longer—taking part in fighting.

And the red cross on a white background has become one of the most recognizable humanitarian symbols in the world.

It is easy to see the Red Cross today and think of it simply as an organization.

But its origins tell a much more remarkable story.

It began because one traveler arrived in the wrong place at exactly the right moment.

Henry Dunant had gone to Italy for business.

Instead, he found thousands of wounded men lying on a battlefield with almost no one to help them.

He could have continued his journey.

He could have decided that the suffering belonged to soldiers, governments, and armies.

Instead, he stopped.

He helped.

And then he returned to Switzerland determined to convince the world that compassion should not disappear simply because countries were at war.

From that idea came the Red Cross.

From that idea came the first Geneva Convention.

And from that idea came a principle that continues to shape international humanitarian law today:

Even in war, humanity must remain.

One Swiss man walked onto a battlefield and saw suffering that could not be ignored. What began there would help change the rules of war forever.