Heirat von Jean-Jacques Dunant und Antoinette Colladon, den Eltern von Jean-Henry Dunant

8. Mai Geburt von Jean-Henri Dunant in Genf

Geburt der Geschwister Sophie-Anne (1829), Daniel (1831), Marie (1833) und Pierre-Louis (1834)

Stadtplan Marseille, um 1836, Quelle: https://www.etsy.com/ch/listing/281486952/marseille-stadtplan-wanddruck-1836

Reise der Familie Dunant nach Marseille und Toulon, wo Henri sich über die unmenschlichen Zustände in den Gefängnissen empört.

Henri begleitet seine Mutter bei ihren Armen- und Krankenbesuchen. Später schliesst er sich der Almosengesellschaft an und besucht selber Arme und Gefangene. Mit einigen Kameraden der Almosengesellschaft führt er in der „Donnerstags-Vereinigung“ Erbauungsabende durch, aus denen später der  Christliche Verein Junger Männer“ (CVJM) entsteht (1848).

30. November: Gründung des Genfer Vereins Christlicher Junger Männer.

Im Auftrag der Genfer Compagnie des Colonies suisses de Sétif unternimmt Dunant seine erste Reise nach Algerien.

Die französische Regierung erteilt Dunant eine Konzession für Mühlen in Sétif.

Gründung des Weltbundes der Christlichen Vereine Junger Männer in Paris, wo sich Dunant als Delegierter des Genfer Vereins aufhält. Dunant wendet sich anschliessend kommerziellen Projekten zu und entschliesst sich nach seiner dritten Algerienreise, ein eigenes Unternehmen zu gründen.

Gründung der Finanz- und Industriegesellschaft von Mons-Djémila.

Dunant reist nach Italien, um bei Napoleon III. wegen seiner algerischen Geschäfte vorzusprechen, die durch bürokratische Massnahmen der Kolonialbehörden behindert werden.24. Juni, Schlacht bei Solferino: Dunant wird mit dem Schrecken des Krieges konfrontiert, entschliesst sich, sofort zu helfen. 40’000 Tote und Verwundete, ungenügende Pflege, Einsatz Freiwilliger zugunsten der Verletzten aller Nationen: „Sono tutti fratelli“, alle sind Brüder“.

Dunant beginnt mit der Niederschrift von „Eine Erinnerung an Solferino“, an der er das ganze Jahr 1861 arbeitet.

Im November erscheint „Eine Erinnerung an Solferino“ auf Kosten Dunants in einer Auflage von 1600 Exemplaren.

9. Februar: Versammlung der Gemeinnützigen Gesellschaft von Genf, die Dunants Ideen auf die Tagesordnung setzt und ein Komitee von fünf Mitgliedern beauftragt, ein Memorandum über die „Unterstützung kriegführender Armeen durch Korps freiwilliger Helfer“ zu verfassen. 17. Februar: Erste Sitzung des „Fünfer-Komitees“, das bald in „Ständiges Internationales Komitee“ umbenannt wird. Vom 20. Februar bis 15. März weilt Dunant in Paris und wirbt um Unterstützung für seine Ideen. September: Dunant reist nach Berlin, wo seine Idee auf dem Statistischen Kongress erstmals einem internationalen Publikum vorgestellt wird. Anschliessend besucht Dunant verschiedene europäische Fürstenhöfe. 26. Oktober: Internationaler Kongress in Genf, 16 Staaten sind vertreten. Zehn Resolutionen und drei Wünsche (insbesondere die Neutralität des Sanitätspersonals) werden verabschiedet.

9. August: Eröffnung der diplomatischen Konferenz in Genf unter dem Vorsitz von General Henri Dufour. Am 22. August wird das Genfer Abkommen „zur Verbesserung des Loses der Verwundeten auf dem Feld“ unterzeichnet. Das Prinzip der Neutralität wird akzeptiert. Das rote Kreuz im weissen Feld wird internationales Schutzzeichen für Heeres-Sanitätsdienste und freiwillige Sanitätshilfe. Dunant befindet sich auf dem Höhepunkt seiner bisherigen «Karriere»

Dunant trifft Napoleon III. in Algerien. Er erhofft sich geschäftliche Vorteile für seine Gesellschaft, deren Lage allmählich prekär wird.

Auf Einladung der Königin Augusta nimmt Dunant an den Feierlichkeiten zum Sieg der Preussen über die Österreicher bei Königgrätz teil. Gründung des „Hülfsvereins für schweizerische Wehrmänner und deren Familien“, seit 1914 „Schweizerisches Rotes Kreuz“ in Bern. Initianten: General Dufour und Bundesrat Jakob Dubs.

Dunant gründet Universalgesellschaft zur Erschliessung Palästinas. Wirtschaftlicher Zusammenbruch Dunants. Rücktritt Dunants als Sekretär des Internationalen Komitees vom Roten Kreuz. Er verlässt Genf und nimmt Wohnsitz in Paris. An der Pariser Weltausstellung wird Dunant für seine Verdienste eine Goldmedaille verliehen.

Dunant lebt in sehr ärmlichen Verhältnissen in Paris und verdient sich seinen Lebensunterhalt mit journalistischen Arbeiten.

Nach Ausbruch des Deutsch-Französischen Krieges gründet Dunant im September eine „Allgemeine Fürsorgegesellschaft“, während der Belagerung von Paris eine „Hilfsgesellschaft“.

Gründung der „Allgemeinen Allianz für Ordnung und Zivilisation“. Hauptanliegen: Politischer und sozialer Friede, internationales Schiedsgericht, Besserstellung der Kriegsgefangenen. Übersiedlung Dunants nach London.

Kongress über die internationale Schiedsgerichtsbarkeit in London. Dunant wird zum Sekretär der „Peace Society“ ernannt.

Diplomatische Konferenz in Brüssel zugunsten des Loses der Kriegsgefangenen. Dunant ist oft krank und führt ein unstetes Leben. Seine Stationen sind Stuttgart, Venedig, Rom, Korfu, Elsass,Stuttgart, Basel, Bern, London, Heiden, Seewis, Engadin, Karlsruhe, Paris, Stuttgart, London, von wo aus er einen Hilferuf an seine Familie nach Genf schickt.

Finanziell ruiniert und gesundheitlich geschwächt, findet Dunant im Juli in Heiden eine zweite Heimat.

Dunant organisiert eine Sektion des Roten Kreuzes in Heiden.

Dunant sammelt Unterlagen über die Geschichte des Roten Kreuzes und beginnt mit der Niederschrift seiner „Erinnerungen“. Arbeitet am „Symbolischen zeitlichen Aufriss“.

Dunant wird Dauerpensionär im Bezirksspital Heiden, betreut von Dr. Hermann Altherr.

Begegnung mit dem Journalisten Georg Baumberger im August, dessen Bericht in der Zeitschrift „Über Land und Meer“ die Öffentlichkeit auf den vergessenen Dunant aufmerksam macht.

Jährliche Rente der russischen Zarenwitwe Maria Feodorowna; dazu 1. Preis des Medizinischen Kongresses in Moskau und Binet-Fendt-Preis der Schweizerischen Eidgenossenschaft.

Das gemeinsame Werk von Rudolf Müller und Henry Dunant „Die Entstehungsgeschichte des Roten Kreuzes und der Genfer Konvention“ erscheint in Stuttgart.

Dunant erhält zusammen mit Frédéric Passy am 10. Dezember den ersten Friedensnobelpreis.

Dunant wird Ehrendoktor der Medizin der Universität Heidelberg.

Weltweite Ehrung zu seinem 80. Geburtstag. Neu überarbeitete Auflage von „Un souvenir de Solférino“.

Tod Henry Dunants am 30. Oktober in Heiden und Bestattung auf dem Friedhof Sihlfeld in Zürich am 2. November.

Jean-Jacques Dunant and Antoinette Colladon marry on 20 June 1827.

The parents of Henry Dunant

Birth of Jean Henri (called Henry) Dunant on 8 May in Geneva. 

Henry has four siblings over the next five years: Sophie-Anne (1829), Daniel (1831), Marie (1833) and Pierre-Louis (1834)

The Dunant family is growing

France begins the conquest of Algeria. The country is occupied and cultivated by European settlers and develops into an important supplier of wine and grain for France.

Colonialism

Gotthard Pass

Henry leaves the Collège Calvin due to poor school performance. He continues to be taught at home with private tutors.

Dunant leaves the Collège Calvin. 

Up to five coaches with ten seats are now introduced. They run daily in both directions, accompanied by sidecars and luggage trolleys. The journey from Flüelen to Chiasso took 23 hours. Due to high demand, the service was also maintained in winter. Sleighs were used instead of carriages. To enable the sledge convoys to travel over the pass, 100 men were on call on both the Uri and Ticino sides to clear the masses of snow. The winter journeys were very dangerous, with sledge convoys being buried by avalanches on more than one occasion.

Expansion of the Gotthard Post

Eastern Algeria under French power

Dunant founds a Bible study group with friends and meets with them every Thursday. From this, a section of the "Young Men's Christian Association" was formed in 1852. Dunant acts as secretary of the Union chrétienne, for which he maintains an ever-growing correspondence. 

Dunant begins his work as secretary of the Union chrétienne, for which he maintains an ever-growing correspondence. 

General Dufour defeats the Catholic Sonderbund cantons with the Swiss federal army and paves the way for the foundation of the Swiss federal state. Nation-state movements form in Europe, for example the independence movement in Italy. Giuseppe Verdi strengthens the Italian sense of national identity with his operas.

A federal state is created

Resistance arose in various European territories to prevent the modernisation of society, the economy and the system of rule. Contemporaries regarded the revolutions in Europe as a failure. Today, however, the long-term effects are assessed differently. In many countries, the liberation of the peasants was completed, the constitutional principle was enforced, individual fundamental rights were secured and a parliamentarisation of the political order was introduced. On the Italian peninsula, it led to the foundation of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861 and, between 1866 and 1871, to the foundation of a German nation state, the German Empire, under the rule of Prussia.

Revolutions of 1848/49

Dunant begins an apprenticeship at the Lullin and Sautter bank in Geneva

Dunant does a banking apprenticeship

Victor Emmanuel II becomes King of Sardinia.  Queen Victoria reigns in Great Britain for 12 years (until 1901) and characterises an era - the Victorian Age. Franz Joseph I is Emperor of Austria.

Kingdoms and queens

Henry Dunant travelled to Algeria on behalf of his bank.

Businessman and coloniser

Louis Napoleon, the nephew of Napoleon I, reigned as Emperor Napoleon III (1852-70). 

Napoleon III

Henry Dunant s'engage pour un échange international et une rencontre à Paris - le début des YMCA.

YMCA or CVJM

The Exposition universelle was modelled on the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London. The exhibition venue was a temporary exhibition palace between the Champs-Élysées and the Seine.  The number of visitors to the first French mega-exhibition totalled over 5 million.

The first world exhibition for France 

Henry decides to set up his own company in Algeria with a business partner. They apply for a licence to operate mills.

Henry Dunant - the entrepreneur

Alexander II becomes Emperor of Russia (until 1881).

Russia

The Crimean War (1853-1856) was a military conflict between the Russian Empire, supported by Austria-Habsburg, against the Ottoman Empire with a coalition of France, Great Britain and Piedmont-Sardinia, which arose from competing territorial claims in south-east Europe. The Russian side suffered 450,000 casualties, the Allies over 220,000.

Crimean War

After travelling to Tunisia, Henry wrote his first book "Notice sur la Régence de Tunis". He probably sees himself more as a homme de lettre than as a businessman.

Dunant writes his first book

Conversion of the Mons-Djémila mill company into a stock corporation. The Algerian administration refuses to grant the new company a concession for two waterfalls and more land. 

Difficulties as a businessman

Birth of Emmeline Pankhurst, daughter of Robert Goulden and Sophia Crane, who is considered the first suffragette.  At the age of 14, she took part in a meeting on women's suffrage. 

Emmeline (Goulden) Pankhurst

Dunant wants to speak to Napoleon III about his Algerian business, which is being hindered by bureaucratic measures taken by the colonial authorities. The Emperor is at war in northern Italy. Dunant reaches the battlefields of Solferino on 24 June. Confronted with the horrors of war, he decides to help care for the wounded on the spot. He does not meet the Emperor.

The horrors of war

Sardinia allies with France against Austria. In June, there are bloody battles in northern Italy at Magenta and Solferino, in which Austria is defeated. The conflict is interrupted with a so-called preliminary peace in Villafranca. With the Peace of Zurich, Austria renounces most of its rights to Lombardy, most of which are transferred to Sardinia.

War of the European superpowers

Construction begins on the Suez Canal, which connects the Mediterranean with the Red Sea. The construction work takes 10 years.

The big canal

Charles Darwin publishes his observations, which are considered a fundamental work of evolutionary biology (in the original: «On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Lives»).

The origin of species 

Since his experiences in Solferino, Dunant has been preoccupied with the question of how to better help the wounded in war. He withdrew completely for months to write "Un Souvenir de Solferino" (A Memory of Solferino). 

«Un Souvenir de Solferino»

The Kingdom of Italy (Regno d'Italia) was a state in southern Europe that existed until 1946 on the territory of today's Italian Republic and parts of its neighbouring states. During this period, Italy consisted of a centrally organised constitutional-parliamentary monarchy and an ecclesiastical state, later known as the Vatican.

The Kingdom of Italy

Wilhelm Friedrich Ludwig of Prussia from the House of Hohenzollern (1797-1888) crowns himself King and becomes the first German Emperor with the foundation of the German Empire in 1871.

Wilhelm I

After his defeat in the Crimean War, Alexander II introduces reforms, including the abolition of serfdom.

Reform tsar

Dunant has 1600 copies of "A Memory of Solferino" printed at his own expense. Thanks to correspondence with influential personalities throughout Europe, his book spreads quickly and becomes a bestseller.

Sales concept for Dunant's 2nd book

President Abraham Lincoln proclaims the emancipation of slaves.

USA 

«Les Misérables» is a novel by Victor Hugo, which he completed in exile on Guernsey. The story begins in 1815 in Toulon, France: the convict Jean Valjean is released from prison after 19 years. He had been sentenced to five years in prison for stealing a loaf of bread. Attempts to escape meant that he had to serve a total of 19 years. 

The miserable

The Italian doctor Fernandino Palasciano calls for the neutrality of the wounded in war.

Neutrality for the wounded

Dunant found support for his ideas in the environment of the Geneva Charitable Society. A "Committee of Five", consisting of Dunant, Gustave Moynier, General Dufour and the two doctors Louis Appia and Théodore Maunoir, organised an international conference of experts to discuss how to improve the care of the war wounded.

The "Committee of Five" 

The international "Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in the Field" - the first Geneva Convention - is adopted in Geneva. With the help of the Committee of Five, Dunant managed to realise his ideas within a very short space of time.

The first Geneva Convention 

The first version of Leo Tolstoy's epoch-making novel is published. Set against the backdrop of the Russo-Napoleonic Wars, War and Peace tells the story of three families whose fates are closely intertwined. The novel is a milestone in modern literature. The descriptions of the bloody battles at Austerlitz and Borodino are furious, while the sketches of the characters are precise and sensitive.

War and peace

Dunant's Algerian business, which had been in crisis for years, failed completely. His Mons-Djémila mills go bankrupt, as does the "Crédit genevois" bank, of which he is the manager. Penniless and socially ostracised, Dunant leaves his hometown of Geneva for good. He is also forced to resign by the International Committee of the Red Cross. 

Dunant's business failure: bankruptcy!

The second world exhibition of the Napoleon III regime was the final highlight of the second empire. 26,000 workers were involved in the construction of the huge oval exhibition building measuring 490 metres by 380 metres. The world exhibition was visited by ten million onlookers.

World Exhibition 1867

Frédéric Passy (1822-1912) was a humanist and French parliamentarian. In 1876, he founded the League for Peace, later called the Société d'arbitrage entre les Nations, and in 1889, together with William Randal Cremer, the Inter-Parliamentary Union. As an "apostle of peace", he was awarded the first Nobel Peace Prize in 1901 together with Henry Dunant. 

A league for peace

Alfred Nobel invents dynamite and patents the invention in the same year. In 1873, he built an explosives factory in Isleten. Here, Nobel was able to prove that his dynamite was suitable for tunnelling in hard rock, such as the Gotthard tunnel.

An invention with explosive power

After decades of economic studies and various preparatory works, the first volume was published in 1867: The Production Process of Capital by Karl Marx (1818-1883). His critique of economics is an analysis of capitalist society with far-reaching effects on the labour movement and the history of the 20th century.  After Marx's death, Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) compiled two further volumes from his manuscripts. In 1885, he published Volume 2: The Circulation Process of Capital. This was followed in 1894 by Volume 3: The Complete Process of Capitalist Production.

The capital

Dunant fled to Paris after the bankruptcy and founded the "General Welfare Society" during the Franco-Prussian War and a "Relief Society" during the occupation of Paris.

Dunant's escape from Geneva to Paris

Napoleon III declares war on Germany. The war revealed the weakness of Napoleon III's regime. The French army was unable to launch an offensive and prevent the invasion of France by the Prussian army and its allies. A large coalition remained in favour of the French. The French army surrendered after the Battle of Sedan and Napoleon III went into the captivity of Wilhelm I, who gave him Wilhelmshöhe Palace in Kassel as his quarters. This is followed by the proclamation of the 3rd French Republic. In 1871, Napoleon III and the former Empress Eugénie are forced into exile in Great Britain, in Chislehurst, today part of the London Borough of Bromley. Napoleon III dies there a year later.

Napoeon III abdicates

In view of the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, the SRC launched an appeal "to the entire Swiss population, to patriotic organisations, to all those who have the common good at heart". It thus called for the founding of cantonal relief organisations, of which there were only a few until then. As a result, around 20 local sections were founded in 1870.

SRC Swiss Red Cross

After the defeat of the French in the Franco-Prussian War and the capitulation of Paris, hard-pressed Republican troops (Bourbaki army) fled to Switzerland at Les Verrières (Jura). The soldiers had to hand in their weapons at the border, and the Swiss Red Cross took over the organisation of supplies for the 85,000 soldiers (population of Switzerland: approx. 2 million).

Paris capitulates

After the defeat of Napoleon III, the Prussian King Wilhelm I is proclaimed Emperor in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles:  The German Empire comes into being (the official term until the end of the monarchy in the November Revolution of 1918). The first German nation state was a constitutional monarchy and, according to its constitution, an "eternal union" of German princes. As its head, the King of Prussia assumed the title of "German Emperor". Otto von Bismarck, Prime Minister and driving force behind the foundation of the empire, was also Chancellor. Berlin, the capital of Prussia, was also the capital of the empire.

The German Empire

Start of construction of the Gotthard railway tunnel (inaugurated in 1882), at 15 km the longest tunnel in the world at the time. Switzerland's most important transport project of the 19th century was co-financed by its neighbours to the north and south. In 1869, Switzerland and Italy signed an international treaty on the financing, construction and operation of the tunnel, which was joined by the young German Reich in 1871. 

Europe is expanding its railway network

Claude Monet paints impressionist pictures: "L'Impression, Soleil levant"

Impression versus realism

Dunant became involved in various philanthropic projects in Paris and London, such as the "General Alliance for Order and Civilisation" and the "Peace Society". His material hardship was alleviated somewhat after he met Léonie Kastner-Boursault, who supported him financially.

A long journey begins

Dunant led an unsettled life, suffering from poor health and mental health. He travelled to Stuttgart, Venice, Rome, Corfu, Alsace, Stuttgart, Basel, Bern, London, Heiden, Seewis, Engadin, Karlsruhe, Paris, Stuttgart and London.

Difficult years for the initiator of the Red Cross

Catharina Sturzenegger takes over the post office in Wolfhalden, which is reopened when she takes up her post. See also 1904.

Catharina Sturzenegger

Alexander Bell (1847-1922) achieved the most lasting historical impact in 1876 with the further development of the telephone into a usable system and its subsequent large-scale industrial commercialisation; the Bell Telephone Company, which later developed into the world's largest telecommunications group AT&T, achieved a dominant market position. 

Telephone!

Japan

For the sake of his health, Dunant leaves Stuttgart; he wants to settle in the spa town of Heiden for a while. He takes a liking to the company that gathers here in summer and stays. 

Heiden as a place of refuge

Dunant moves to the district hospital in Heiden as a permanent pensioner, where he will remain for the rest of his life.

New home in Heiden district hospital

5th International Conference of Red Cross Societies in Rome. Dunant wants W. Sonderegger to attend, to promote the spa town of Heiden and to remember the initiator of the Red Cross.

International conference

Depression and fear of persecution increased, so that Dunant no longer left his room in the district hospital and hardly received any visitors. 

A "hermit" in the midst of people

An article in the well-known magazine "Über Land und Meer" ("Across land and sea") catapults the supposedly lost Dunant back into the consciousness of the European public.

"Across land and sea"

Rehabilitating himself as the founder of the Red Cross became the purpose of old Dunant's life. Under the name of his friend Rudolf Müller, he publishes "The History of the Origin of the Red Cross and the Geneva Convention".

The rehabilitation 

Ranavalona III (1861-1917 in Algiers, Algeria) was the last ruler of the Kingdom of Madagascar and reigned from 1883 to 1897. In 1896, France attacked the island kingdom and Madagascar became a French protectorate. Formally, Ranavalona III continued to be the ruler. This changed a year later: French General Joseph Gallieni deposed the queen on 28 February 1897 and exiled her to Algeria.  Ranavalona III died of an embolism in Algiers on 23 May 1917 at the age of 55.

Colonialism: For example, the disempowerment of the last ruler of Madagascar

Zionism

Dunant receives the first Nobel Peace Prize together with Frédéric Passy. His friends Dr Dae, Müller and Berta von Suttner, with whom he corresponded and published for their magazine «Die Waffen nieder» («Lay Down Your Arms»), played a major role in his receiving the honour.

Awarded

Theodore Roosevelt becomes President of the USA.

Theodore Roosevelt

Gustave Moynier publishes «La fondation de la Croix-Rouge». 

A different perspective: the founding of the Red Cross

Dunant motivates Catherina Sturzenegger to get involved in Japan. Catharina Clara Sturzenegger (* 5.12.1854 in Speicher AR; † 11.10.1929 in Zurich; domiciled in Trogen) was a Swiss journalist and writer and worked for the Red Cross. As a journalist, she initially wrote under the pseudonym C. Albertini; she later shortened her first name to avoid being identified as a woman. She travelled to Japan as an emissary of the Red Cross during the Russo-Japanese War (1904/1905), learned Japanese on the ship crossing and stayed in Japan as a correspondent until 1908; to finance her living, she founded a public school for the German language in Tokyo.

Catherina Sturzenegger

Fame and honour

Death of Henry Dunant on 30 October in Heiden. In order to honour the wishes of the deceased (cf. his quote, «to be buried like a dog»), the funeral is held without a ceremony in the closest circle.  As Dunant wanted to be cremated, his body was brought to Zurich.

«To be buried like a dog...»

Companion and adversary

Death of Leo Tolstoy on 9 September, around 50 days before Henry Dunant.

The same dates of life

Gravestone in Zurich

The Dunant monument by Charlotte Germann Jahn (1921-1988) made of green granite is inaugurated