Episode 2 of 3

First Delegates Under Red Cross Symbol

When: 1864
Where: Armed conflict zone
Part of: First Geneva Convention signed, 22 August 1864

Louis Appia and Charles van de Velde became the first independent and neutral delegates to work under the Red Cross symbol in an armed conflict in 1864.

This development occurred in the same year as the adoption of the First Geneva Convention. The symbol, a white armlet bearing a red cross, was introduced in the final resolutions of the 1863 conference, honoring the history of neutrality of Switzerland.

Sources

International Committee of the Red Cross Wikipedia, revision of 2026-10-07

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.