The Shôken Fund and the evolution of the Red Cross movement

ABSTRACT

This article examines the creation of the Shôken Fund and its impact on the evolution of the Red Cross movement globally, with a focus on the first quarter of the twentieth century and post-First World War European reconstruction. The Shôken Fund was an initiation of the Japanese Red Cross Society in 1912 to support Red Cross activities in peacetime, administered by the International Committee of the Red Cross. It came into effect in 1920 and the first grants were allocated to Red Cross Societies and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in 1921. The article contributes to the historiography of the Red Cross movement and twentieth century humanitarianism by arguing that the Japanese Red Cross Society, through its Shôken Fund, played an important but little known role in the transformation of the Red Cross within the first years of the post-First World War period, as it helped to facilitate a shift in focus for the ICRC from war only to one that included peacetime activities such as those advocated by the newly created League of Red Cross Societies.

KEYWORDS:

• Red Cross movement
• Shôken Fund
• Japanese Red Cross
• League of Red Cross Societies
• International Committee of Red Cross
• reconstruction

Introduction

This article examines the creation of the Shôken Fund and its impact on the evolution of the Red Cross movement globally, with a focus on the first quarter of the twentieth century and post-First World War European reconstruction. Initially referred to as ‘Fund for the Encouragement of Relief work in Time of Peace’ when it was first proposed in 1912, the Shôken Fund was initiated by the Japanese Red Cross Society to support Red Cross activities in peacetime. It came into effect in 1920 and the first grants were allocated to several Red Cross national societies and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in 1921. The Shôken Fund still exists today with annual grants awarded to national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies. This article builds on scholarly work that has documented the initial post-First World War tensions between two major players in the Red Cross world: the ICRC and the newly created League of Red Cross Societies (LRCS).¹ In particular, it expands an argument put forward by Irène Herrmann that the ICRC mobilized a range of ‘strategies’ to ‘contain’ the League’s early development.² Although not addressed by Herrmann directly, the administration of the Shôken Fund by the ICRC was another such strategy. We also expand on the work of Melanie Oppenheimer, who first explored the Shôken Fund as one of three distinct moments in the history of the Japanese Red Cross and its relationship with the broader Red Cross movement between 1907 and 1926.³ We build on this within the framework of post-First World War reconstruction and argue that the Shôken Fund contributed to the diversification of the mission of the Red Cross movement across the globe, assisting the ICRC, the League of Red Cross Societies from 1935, and national societies in developing their peacetime work. Today, the Red Cross movement is acknowledged for both its wartime and peacetime work with a diversity of programmes, including medical aid, disaster relief and child welfare. Furthermore, the article contributes to the historiography of the Red Cross movement and twentieth century humanitarianism more broadly by arguing that the Japanese Red Cross Society, through its Shôken Fund, played a significant role in the transformation of the Red Cross within the first years of the post-First World War period, and helped to facilitate a shift for the ICRC, in particular, from a focus solely on war to one that included peacetime activities.

In this article, the Red Cross movement is understood as three components: national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies across the globe, their leadership and members (currently numbering 192), as well as the Geneva-based ICRC and the International Federation of Red Cross Red Crescent (known as the League of Red Cross Societies until 1991). It involves the interactions among those components of the movement, its guiding principles and their diffusion, as well as the humanitarian actions that occur under the Red Cross Red Crescent banner. Within the framework of this double special issue, our scope is purposefully restricted both geographically and chronologically. This article investigates post-First World War Western European reconstruction through the lens of the contributions of the Shôken Fund, and the impact of the Fund on the Red Cross movement. It is not the intention to analyse the creation of the Shôken Fund from a Japanese perspective, although we have used some Japanese primary sources written or translated into French and English to inform the article. We have also accessed a range of primary and secondary material, the most important among them being the ICRC archives on the Shôken Fund that have rarely been used by historians.⁴

Distinguishing peacetime and wartime work

The origin of the Red Cross movement in 1863 with the creation of the International Committee of the Red Cross saw early national societies establish themselves primarily as auxiliaries to the military, to relieve the suffering of the wounded on the battlefields and to attempt to codify the rules of engagement in war.⁵ The addition of the Turkish Red Crescent Society in 1876 observed another shift. Directing the mission of Red Cross and Red Crescent societies towards peacetime work, however, was a slow, uneven and at times challenging process, one that was, at least initially, not encouraged by the ICRC. The original goal, articulated by Henri Dunant, was for a volunteer organization to alleviate the suffering of soldiers on the battlefield.⁶ As the movement grew, individual national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies expanded their role, partly because maintaining momentum in between wars and conflict became a recurring problem. Mobilized, and at times even created in times of war, the rationale for their existence could wane, which affected their membership and finances. In times of peace, some national societies continued their activities to increase their preparedness for future conflicts and for natural disasters, progressively expanding the scope of their work towards non military-related activities. For example, the associations that constituted the French Red Cross focused on training nurses, first aid for local ‘calamities’ and even epidemics after the Franco-Prussian War.⁷ Others, such as the American Red Cross, pushed for the development of new areas of work, such as national disaster response or international famine relief.⁸

As the First World War blurred the distinction between war and peace, between combatants and civilians, we need to distinguish wartime work from peacetime work. Traditionally Red Cross work was articulated around war, an activity the movement aimed to make more humane, to codify, in order to set limits. Unlike wartime and war-related work, this article defines peacetime work in the way proponents of the Shôken Fund understood it: simply as work that is not in essence related to military activities. This opened up the range of activities that a national Red Cross or Red Crescent society could legitimately pursue, in turn broadening its user base and membership. Disaster relief, epidemics, public health, nursing and hygiene, childcare and many non military-oriented areas of work (although some could be continued or developed while a war was going on) were initiated by individual national Red Cross societies transforming the work and purpose of the Red Cross movement.

Although in its infancy before the First World War, the shift towards peacetime work for the Red Cross movement began in earnest in 1919 with the founding of the League of Red Cross Societies (LRCS) and its focus on the ‘improvement of health, the prevention of disease, and the mitigation of suffering’.⁹ The League was founded by the five national Red Cross societies of the United States, Britain, Italy, France and Japan, led by the American Henry Davison and financed by the American Red Cross in response to a perception that the ICRC was a small, antiquated institution ill equipped to tackle the needs of a new post-First World War world.¹⁰ It was from this point onwards that the ICRC becomes moderately involved in peacetime work dealing with the aftermath of conflict once the First World War ‘ended’. All this is reasonably well known.¹¹ What is absent from this narrative, however, is the specific role of the Shôken Fund and the Japanese Red Cross in providing critical financial support to the ICRC, funding that enabled it to pivot easily towards peacetime work and reconstruction. A survey of the Shôken Fund in the 1920s, therefore, provides us with a lens with which to study this shift and the non-European Red Cross national society responsible for the Shôken Fund.

Through an analysis of the creation and development of the Shôken Fund, we seek to investigate two major research questions. First, what was the broader trend within the Red Cross movement to move beyond wartime and war-related work prior to the creation of the LRCS in 1919? Did the movement as a whole, with the ICRC as primus inter pares, consider peacetime work prior to the creation of the LRCS, or was it the formation of the latter that compelled the ICRC to take peacetime work more seriously? Was it a matter of timing as a result of the havoc created by the First World War and the immense task of reconstruction, or of the challenges brought by the LRCS that altered the core mission of the ICRC? Second, we ask to what extent did the Shôken Fund, through the provision of monies, directly assist the ICRC to move into peacetime work, a domain specifically claimed by the LRCS and the reason for its foundation in the first place? Examining the Shôken Fund allows us to glimpse several key shifts within the Red Cross world in the early twentieth century. It anchors Japan – the country that initiated and provided the money for the fund – at the heart of a largely European and Western movement, and as a national society of global importance. It further evidences the divide and competition between the ICRC and the nascent LRCS and, most importantly, it reveals how national Red Cross societies expanded their prerogatives to peacetime activities, prior, during and in particular in the aftermath of the First World War.

The Japanese Red Cross and the promotion of peacetime benevolent activities

To understand the origins of the Shôken Fund, a brief outline of the history of the Japanese Red Cross is necessary.¹² As part of the Meiji Era (1868–1912), Japan embarked on a process of modernization, industrialization and Westernization.¹³ These developments, partly driven by Japanese elites, partly forced upon Japanese society by the United States and later by other powers that compelled Japan to open up its economy and country to the world, were resisted by members of the military nobility (Samurai) who revolted against the imperial government during the Satsuma Rebellion in 1877.¹⁴ Armed with modern weaponry, Japanese imperial troops crushed the rebellion. At the same time Count Sano Tsunetami established the Hakuaisha Society, a philanthropic and humanitarian organization intended to provide relief to the wounded, regardless of the side on which they fought.¹⁵ Earlier in 1867 Count Sano Tsunetami was a member of the Japanese group of representatives to the Paris Exhibition and had seen first-hand how new national Red Cross societies were organizing themselves and the work they were undertaking.¹⁶ This international exhibition was an important moment in the history of the Red Cross movement, with societies presenting innovations to alleviate the suffering of soldiers on the battlefield.¹⁷ Nine years after the creation of the Hakuaisha Society, Japan became a party to the Geneva Convention in June 1886. This was promulgated in Japan on 15 November 1886, thus sealing Japan’s adhesion to the broader Red Cross movement.¹⁸ The Hakuaisha Society changed its name to Japanese Red Cross Society. The support of the imperial family for this initiative only reinforced its importance among the Japanese people, and by 1900 the society was one of the largest in the world, reporting a membership between 700,000 and one million.¹⁹

By 1902, the Japanese Red Cross was advocating for the Red Cross movement to be active in peacetime, and to be prepared for ‘public calamities’ not related to war. Japan’s physical location, its geological structure and population density explains the regular devastation caused by natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, typhoons and volcanic eruptions. It made sense for the Japanese society to be prepared and build up its resilience to respond to natural disasters and alleviate people’s suffering. Representatives of the Japanese Red Cross presented arguments to the 7^th International Conference of the Red Cross in Saint Petersburg in 1902, suggesting that in order for Red Cross and Red Crescent societies to be prepared for their wartime work, societies needed to be trained during peacetime and engage in peacetime work.²⁰ The Japanese Red Cross Society was active in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894 and in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05 with their work recognized at a national and international level, and often praised when commented upon in the European and US press alike. Some looked to the Japanese Red Cross as an example to follow.²¹ As part of the US Taft Mission to Asia in 1905, American Red Cross leader Mabel Boardman observed her counterparts in Japan leading to reforms within the American Red Cross, especially in the areas of nursing and disaster relief.²² Continuing pressure, at the 8^th International Conference of the Red Cross in 1907, the Japanese Red Cross Society ‘submitted a report describing the disasters it had responded to – cyclones [typhoons], fires, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, mine explosions, shipwrecks – to promote the inclusion of peacetime activities in the mandate of the Red Cross’.²³ Through these actions, the Japanese Red Cross sought to become a leading member of the Red Cross movement, not least in order to portray the country as a civilized nation with a role to play in world affairs. At the same time, it was recognized for both its war and peace roles well before the creation of the LRCS.²⁴

The Japanese Red Cross Society was not the only national society engaged in peacetime activities. Alleviating the suffering on the battlefield and the codification of war through the Geneva Convention were at the heart of the Red Cross movement in the late nineteenth century. But among some national societies, a shift towards peacetime work can be observed. By the 1910s, the American Red Cross, and to a lesser extent the French Red Cross and those of other European national societies, such as the Italian Red Cross, had a track record of disaster relief action.²⁵ The advocacy of the Japanese Red Cross during the 7^th and 8^th International Conferences was dans l’air du temps, in tune with the times. However, it was arguably the most advanced in its thinking. Under the leadership of Baron Ozawa, the Japanese Red Cross sought to influence the movement in this regard.²⁶ ‘It is our duty’, Ozawa suggested, to ‘adopt better methods of relief work both in time of war and in time of peace’.²⁷ This included the creation of a ‘Ten Year Scheme’ for the Japanese Red Cross as a blueprint for operation in peacetime with a particular focus on disaster management.²⁸ This example of the Japanese Red Cross advocating for the inclusion of peacetime work illustrates that although it was discussed at International Red Cross conferences, the ICRC was neither leading such discussions nor encouraging them. Rather, it viewed such advocacy as a distraction from what it saw as the core mission of the movement. Members of the imperial family were patrons of the Japanese Red Cross,²⁹ and its overseas work aligned with the diplomatic priorities of the imperial government. Showcasing the work of the Japanese Red Cross at international gatherings of the Red Cross served to demonstrate Japan’s standing as the most civilized and industrial nation of Asia, as would the translation into English of selected Japanese Red Cross publications.³⁰ Five years after the signing of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, the patronage of Empress Shôken enabled Baron Ozawa to secure an audience at Buckingham Palace in 1907 to deliver a message of congratulations from Empress Shôken to Queen Alexandra on her philanthropic work. Buckingham Palace reciprocated.³¹ Thus international Red Cross events provided opportunities to meet with distinguished world leaders and advanced both Japan’s humanitarian and diplomatic endeavours.

The Creation of the Shôken Fund and the ICRC’s response

By the time of the 9^th International Conference of the Red Cross held in Washington in 1912, the Japanese Red Cross’ position on the diversification of Red Cross activities into peacetime work was well known. The Japanese delegates came to Washington with a proposal to support the ongoing mobilization of Red Cross and Red Crescent societies through peacetime work. The plan involved a donation of 100,000 gold yen to be used to create a fund that would exclusively support the peacetime relief work of national societies, all the while demonstrating the increased financial power of Japan. National societies could apply to the fund on an annual basis to support their peacetime initiatives. The proposed Fund would bear the name of the donor: Empress Shôken (Emperor Meiji’s wife).³² The strategy of using the name of a female member of the elite was based on Baron Ozawa’s observation at the 8^th International Conference of the Red Cross in London, where up to one third of the delegates were women. It was this ‘demonstration of woman power, [and] his desire to ensure that Japan was not falling behind in this shift in gender relations’ that persuaded the Japanese Red Cross to initiate the fund.³³ Importantly, it followed the earlier establishment of two other named funds by national Red Cross societies, that of the Prussian Empress Augusta (1890) and the Russian Empress Marie Feodorovna (1902). The first fund provided grants to national societies so they could purchase ‘specific objects or practical utility’ for their work, such as stretchers and ambulances.³⁴ The second rewarded the creators of the best ‘inventions having as their aim the lessening of the suffering of sick and wounded troops’ and was awarded at international Red Cross conferences.³⁵ Both funds related to wartime activities. The Shôken Fund, however, was to fund peacetime work and, therefore, shift the direction of Red Cross activities. By far the most financially lucrative of the trifecta, the Shôken Fund was an attempt by the Japanese Red Cross to position themselves as a leading national society within the Red Cross movement, as well as a vehicle to formalize a move into peacetime work.

The Japanese Red Cross had the support of the American Red Cross. In a detailed submission to the conference, the Americans specifically made mention of ‘relief work in time of peace’ and that the proposed fund ‘will be administered with the utmost effort to realise all the wishes of the Royal Donor’.³⁶ The Japanese Red Cross then proposed a statute for the ‘Fund for the Encouragement of Relief Work in Time of Peace’ to be formalized at the 10^th International Conference of the Red Cross planned for 1917. Until then the Japanese Red Cross would administer the Fund.³⁷ Gustave Ador, a long-standing member of the ICRC, who was appointed its President in 1910, confirmed this in a much shorter proposal, which was supported unanimously.³⁸ Critically, however, Ador’s proposal did not specifically mention relief work in peacetime. The brevity of Ador’s proposal reflected the ICRC’s lukewarm response to the overall idea. Put simply, Red Cross peacetime work was not a priority from Geneva’s point of view. The intent of the ICRC was to keep its focus, and that of the Red Cross movement, on war and wartime roles.

Two years after the Washington conference, on 12 August 1914, the Japanese Red Cross liaised with the ICRC and forwarded draft statutes and guidelines for the fund.³⁹ With the commencement of the First World War, peacetime work was swiftly relegated to the background. The vice president of the ICRC, Paul Des Gouttes, replied to the president of the Japanese Red Cross confirming the ICRC’s interest in the newly established fund, but that given the war, ‘the activity of the committee finds itself completely absorbed by the enormous and never-ending development of the Agence internationale des prisonniers de Guerre’. Des Gouttes assured the Japanese Red Cross that the ICRC would liaise with their central committee as soon as practicable to consult the statutes drafted for the Shôken Fund.⁴⁰ This did not happen until 1919.

The 10^th International Conference of the Red Cross scheduled for 1917 was delayed as a result of the war, and the ICRC seemingly (or deliberately perhaps) forgot about the Shôken Fund until the Japanese Red Cross once again pressed the Committee. In October 1919, the Japanese Red Cross president, Baron Ishiguro, sent a polite reminder to the ICRC accompanied by a copy of the proposed statutes.⁴¹ He suggested that the matter be tabled for the next International Conference of the Red Cross.⁴² After years of putting the matter aside, the ICRC suddenly became very responsive. Instead of waiting for the next International Conference, where a discussion of the statutes and their approval would normally take place, the proposed statutes were published as a circulaire inviting national societies to contact the ICRC should they wish to make amendments. In the absence of responses, the ICRC would consider them approved, an expedient way to fast track the establishment of the fund and, therefore, accelerate the handover of the monies from Japan to Geneva.⁴³

After years of deferment and disinterest, the reasons for this radical change of approach are not addressed in the ICRC’s archives of the Shôken Fund. The First World War certainly played a role. While it was initially used as a motive to postpone the establishment of a new role for the Red Cross movement in August 1914, one for which the ICRC showed no enthusiasm, no one could have predicted the scale of the conflict and its effects on soldiers and civilians alike. Millions had died, empires had collapsed, and the war had left a trail of destruction that was unprecedented. Even the most advanced states had difficulties providing for the basic needs of their populations. This context called for a humanitarian response that was equally unprecedented. Suddenly, the ideas (and monies) behind the Shôken Fund became relevant in Switzerland. But beyond this international and sortie de guerre context, a new internal context within the Red Cross world helps to explain the ICRC’s uncharacteristic rapidity in dealing with the Japanese Red Cross’ fund. As mentioned earlier, in May 1919, five national societies of the Red Cross created the League of Red Cross Societies (LRCS) with the financial backing of the American Red Cross.⁴⁴ The mission of the LRCS was to develop the peacetime work of the Red Cross movement, in particular public health initiatives and dealing with the aftermath of the war. As a federated body, the LRCS’ arrival challenged the ICRC’s prime position within the Red Cross world. The ICRC risked being an organization of past wars, lacking significance in a post-war environment, while the LRCS would be the future of the movement, with its modern scientific and hygienist approach to world problems. To counter this situation, the ICRC identified a need to broaden its scope and engage in peacetime activities. Activating the Shôken Fund was a financially lucrative way of doing so and it came at a critical time for the ICRC to maintain its international reputation and position. The nascent LRCS and the initial financial support it received from the American Red Cross greatly worried Gustave Ador.⁴⁵ With access to the Shôken Fund, national societies would request funding from the fund through the ICRC, initiating a framework that would position the ICRC as a legitimate funding body for peacetime work, competing directly with the newly established League of Red Cross Societies. This competition became official when the ICRC scheduled the much-awaited 10^th International Conference to be held in Geneva in 1921. The ICRC had to move forward and be proactive, or else it would lose its central role within the Red Cross movement.

Among the proposed agenda items for the 10^th International Conference of the Red Cross circulated to national societies by the ICRC in October 1919 was a discussion of the ‘the subsequent development of Red Cross national societies in their peacetime’ activities.⁴⁶ By then, however, peacetime activities were the prerogative of the LRCS, which prompted the following remark from the President of the Central Committee of the French Red Cross, General Pau. Pau wrote to Ador to express the view that the proposed discussion seemed ‘to come under the competencies of the League of Red Cross Societies rather than those of the ICRC’ and went on to discuss the new League and its attributions.⁴⁷ This reaction from one of the founding member societies of the LRCS testifies to the view that the ICRC was not expected to become the coordinator for peacetime work within the Red Cross world. It is within this context that one can better understand why the ICRC suddenly became interested in the Shôken Fund and pivoted towards peacetime work. Not only had the First World War changed the landscape for humanitarian action, but a new player within the Red Cross world had arrived and was transforming the principles of the movement.⁴⁸

The Japanese Red Cross Society was one of five founding members of the LRCS. As the Washington Conference had already approved the Shôken Fund to be managed by the ICRC, the Japanese were not in a position to redirect it to the newly established League. Furthermore, the LRCS was yet to prove that it was able to deliver on the ambitious programme of work it had assigned itself: peacetime work; the promotion of public health; reconstruction; and disaster relief. Contributing as it did to the LRCS’s foundation, the Japanese Red Cross was supporting the Red Cross’s move to engage in peacetime work, a position the society had publicly expressed at international meetings since the beginning of the twentieth century. As Japan was among the ‘winners’ of the First World War, the LRCS, as a new international federation, was yet another avenue to push that agenda. By supporting both the LRCS and the Shôken Fund with the ICRC, the Japanese Red Cross was effectively advancing the role of peacetime work within the Red Cross world as a whole.

The Shôken Fund and post-First World War reconstruction

In the 1920s, the type of peacetime work funded by the Shôken Fund generally supported post-World War I reconstruction and resilience-building activities in Europe. Prior to surveying these activities, a short explanation as to how the Fund was structured is necessary. On 10 December 1919, the ICRC circulated the statutes and guidelines for the Shôken Fund to national societies and they were officially approved on 20 December 1920.⁴⁹ Articles regulating the fund made it clear that it was intended exclusively for peacetime work (for example reconstruction, the fight against diseases and epidemics, and disaster relief), that it was to be administered by the ICRC, that only the interest generated by the fund could be used (to preserve the capital), that national societies should appeal to the fund by 11 April each year (the anniversary of the death of Empress Shôken),⁵⁰ and that the ICRC itself could apply for funds providing it secured the approval of three national societies.⁵¹ Other articles laid out the reporting duties of the ICRC towards the Japanese Red Cross and all national societies. In that sense, those applying to the Fund knew that the monies had come from Japan and recipient societies thanked the Japanese Red Cross officially, paying homage to the memory of Empress Shôken when accepting the grant.⁵²

In the immediate post-war context, peacetime work was very much aligned with what former belligerent countries called reconstruction, today a broad field of historical inquiry.⁵³ Here, reconstruction is not understood in its narrow and literal sense of bricks and mortar and the rebuilding of infrastructure. Rather, we understand reconstruction as a series of complex social, economic, political, cultural and demographic processes that altered the status quo through their transformative nature, including immediate post-war assistance to populations. As Sultan Barakat has explained, reconstruction is ‘a range of holistic activities in an integrated process designed not only to reactivate economic and social development but at the same time to create a peaceful environment that will prevent relapse into violence’, or chaos.⁵⁴ In that sense, in this sortie de guerre context, the Shôken Fund provided opportunities to national societies not only to develop or expand their peacetime work, but also to contribute to the reconstruction of their country.⁵⁵ In the early years of the Shôken Fund, many of the grants were directly related to reconstruction needs of programmes and infrastructures that had been shattered by the war.

This is evident when considering the first disbursement of the Shôken Fund monies in 1921. The initial endowment of 100,000 yen plus interest was transferred from the Japanese Red Cross’s coffers to those of the ICRC, whose responsibility it was to administer the fund and distribute its yearly interest monies. National societies were asked to send a funding request to the ICRC. As per the funding rules, the applications were assessed by a representative of the ICRC and three invited national societies that changed each year. For the inaugural year, the Italian, Japanese and Swedish Red Cross societies were appointed.⁵⁶ The monies for distribution was large because interest generated by the Shôken Fund had accrued between 1912 and 1920, totalling just under 60,000 yen,⁵⁷ or 153,000 Swiss francs, 140,000 of which were proposed for distribution.⁵⁸ It was up to the applicants to respect eligibility criteria and to explain which peacetime activity the funds would be used for if awarded. In 1921, the Bulgarian Red Cross was allocated 10,000 Swiss francs to fight tuberculosis, a disease that had grown exponentially as a result of the First World War. A similar sum was allocated to the Danish Red Cross for its peacetime ambulances and the Hellenic Red Cross to fight the infant tuberculosis that had developed because of the conflict. The Polish Red Cross received 20,000 Swiss francs to combat tuberculosis among Polish children, again a result of the war. The French Red Cross was allocated 20,000 Swiss francs for first-aid services in the devastated regions of France.⁵⁹ The French Red Cross attached brief reports to its application to explain how it would use the grant. The funding would go towards supporting the children of France’s régions dévastées, areas in the north-east part of France that had been almost obliterated as a result of the war.⁶⁰ As we know, the Shôken Fund was created exclusively for peacetime work, but the sortie de guerre context meant that its first iterations in the early 1920s were addressing consequences of the war once peace had been restored, at least legally, supporting activities that aimed to build healthier and resilient societies. The Shôken Fund enabled the ICRC to diversify its humanitarianism at a time when most of its energy was dedicated to prisoners of war and refugees.

That same year, in 1921, after having followed the approval process via three national societies, the ICRC granted itself the lion’s share of the 140,000 Swiss francs available for distribution. It allocated 70,000 Swiss francs to pursue the vaguely described ‘peacetime work of the International Committee, in particular for the numerous missions that it is called upon to undertake at the request of Red Cross societies of various countries’.⁶¹ The timing of the monies was critical for the ICRC and it made up one third of the body’s total annual budget for 1921.⁶² Monies from the Shôken Fund allowed the ICRC, for the first time, to become active in peacetime work. Although the archives are largely silent as to how exactly the ICRC spent its Shôken Fund monies and it is difficult to trace, it was reported at the 11^th International Conference of the Red Cross held in August 1923 that the ICRC spent 5000 Swiss francs for victims of an earthquake in Chile in 1922, and, the following year, the Turkish Red Crescent received 6000 Swiss francs to provide medical relief to Russian refugees.⁶³ It was also reported in the centenary history of the Shôken Fund that these monies were ‘intended to create an international relief fund’ for national societies. However, the 1929 Wall Street crash and diminished contributions from national societies saw the bulk of the monies used to prop up the ICRC itself.⁶⁴ The ICRC’s new peacetime work meant it was in direct competition with a LRCS beset with its own problems. The fledgling LRCS struggled with a ‘lack of funds, staffing and other resource issues’. The idea of the LRCS ‘as a Public Health Institute to centralise the peace work of the Red Cross national societies’ was necessarily reduced.⁶⁵

During the 1920s, monies for the Shôken Fund helped national societies to develop their peacetime work, including public health and reconstruction programmes. The monies were used for a wide array of projects. We can identify three broad areas of funding when considering the 58 grants awarded from Shôken Fund monies from 1921 to 1930 to over 20 national societies and the ICRC. The fight against tuberculosis, often with a focus on children, was the most common source of grants from the Fund in the 1920s and the 1930s. The First World War spread the disease across Europe, and it took decades of hard work, treatment and prevention to get it under control.⁶⁶ For instance, the Polish Red Cross in its 1920 funding request (for the 1921 round) explained that the war resulted in many more children having the disease, while the Hellenic Red Cross explained in its application of the following year that the majority of children hosted at the Panhellenic Antituberculosis League’s hospital were ‘war victims, orphans of Macedonia and Thrace who lost their parents either at the front or through displacement’.⁶⁷ National Red Cross societies that received money from the fund for tuberculosis programmes include Bulgaria, Greece and Poland in 1921; Austria, Yugoslavia, Romania, Spain, Sweden and France in 1923; Austria, Bulgaria, Denmark and Germany for 1924; Germany, Belgium, Poland and Latvia in 1926 and the list goes on through the 1930s, often including the same countries.

First aid services, general volunteer training and nurses’ training was the second main broad area of funding for the Shôken Fund. The money was spent to train or re-train Red Cross volunteers and nurses in first aid, medical support and care practices. This benefited populations of war-torn countries whose wounded soldiers and civilians lived for many years with the physical marks of the conflict and its aftermath, such as the spread of diseases and epidemics and increased infant mortality. Countries that benefited from funding for such programmes include Denmark and France in 1921; Finland and Hungary in 1923; Hungary and Poland in 1924; Switzerland in 1925; Costa Rica and Hungary in 1928; and Greece, Poland and Romania in 1929. Once again, this is a broad spectrum of quasi exclusively European national societies, helping to shift the Red Cross movement towards peacetime work and to specifically support civilian populations.

Finally, in the interwar period, public health was the third major area of funding for the Shôken Fund. This was generally geared towards ‘propaganda’ programmes to circulate information on basic hygiene practices and principles. In this domain, grants were awarded to Thailand in 1923, Lithuania in 1924, Iran in 1925 and the Netherlands and Romania in 1926. Grants were also awarded through the Shôken Fund for international relief missions to Russia in 1923 and 1924, disaster relief for Belgium in 1925, and social services for Czechoslovakia in 1928 and New Zealand in 1929. Overall, the Shôken Fund scheme was not very competitive, and the grants reflect the local needs of national societies rather than ICRC directives. National societies were encouraged to apply to the fund and reminded that their requests should align with its objectives. Generally speaking, national societies waited their turn and did not reapply immediately if they had been granted funding in the previous round. These parameters enable us to conclude that there was a general agreement on what important Red Cross peacetime work looked like in the aftermath of the First World War, and that was reconstruction work (broadly defined), and capacity building.

While the programmes mentioned above were technically about peacetime work and spread across the world from Europe to Asia and as far as New Zealand, the borders between war and peace were somewhat porous. Although the war was over, its consequences echoed through civil societies for many years. In that sense, the Shôken Fund contributed to the sortie de guerre of European societies, that time of transition between war and peace, between destruction and reconstruction. Furthermore, when reading the applications made to the Shôken Fund in the 1920s, it becomes clear that while some of the funds served to help create entirely new social and medical programmes, national societies often used the funds to supplement pre-existing activities and infrastructure needs. In other words, peacetime work was as much a programme encouraged from the top of the Red Cross movement (that is, the ICRC and LRCS) as something that both existed before the war for some national societies and that emerged organically for them because of the conflict, be that during the war itself or shortly afterwards. This demonstrates that in many ways the ICRC was catching up with a broader phenomenon within the Red Cross world: that of peacetime relief activities. This shift was observed among some national societies such as the American, Japanese, Italian and French Red Cross societies before the war, a trend that accelerated with the First World War creating a need for Red Cross national societies to broaden their remit to include the whole community, not just those in the military. Additionally, many national societies had grown exponentially during the war, or, as in the case of Australia and New Zealand, had formed branches of the British Red Cross Society. These organizations realized the needs of populations that extended beyond the war, with sections of the community, especially women, mobilized and wanting to continue into peacetime.⁶⁸ The First World War was a pivotal moment that demonstrated the relevance of the extension of the domain of activities of the Red Cross movement around the world, a watershed moment in humanitarian action that gave a new élan, a new boost ensuring its place within the broader humanitarian movement into the twentieth century.

That élan, however, was initially supposed to come from the LRCS, the new federation of national societies whose programme was exclusively focused on peacetime work, and public health in particular. We already noted that in 1921, the ICRC received half of the income generated by the Shôken Fund. It must have been a bitter pill to swallow for the LRCS when, in 1927, the ICRC received a further 13,000 Swiss francs from the Shôken Fund for an ‘international competition for medical personnel project’.⁶⁹ This was by far the largest single distribution from the Fund that year and dwarfed the 3000 Swiss francs awarded to the Austrian Red Cross for tuberculosis and a further 2000 Swiss francs awarded to the Bulgarian Red Cross for social medicine.⁷⁰ The inclusion of the LRCS in the administration (and largess) of the Shôken Fund was only remedied by the Japanese Red Cross at the 15^th International Conference of the Red Cross held in Tokyo in 1934. This was the first time the Conference had been held in Japan. The LRCS had earlier held Oriental Conferences in 1922 (Bangkok) and 1926 (Tokyo). The Japanese used the Conference to announce a further 100,000 yen to be donated to the Fund by Empress Kōjun (Hirohito, Emperor Shōwa’s wife). This benevolence was on the condition that the ICRC agreed to share custody of the Fund with the LRCS in line with the 1928 Statutes of the International Red Cross.⁷¹ The new arrangement, uncontested by the ICRC, meant that the League could finally apply to the Shôken Fund for its programme of works. In the 1930s it did so on three occasions as part of joint applications with the ICRC: in 1935 for youth training, in 1937 for international aid training, and in 1938 for international social services training.⁷² On these three occasions funding amounted to a total of 14,000 Swiss francs. Through the Fund, the Japanese continued to shape their image abroad as benevolent patrons of a philanthropic and modern global nation. They never interfered in decisions regarding grants and their recipients and did not attempt to use the Shôken Fund as leverage for their own purposes. From September 1931, when Japan invaded Manchuria and most of South East Asia during the Second World War, there was no interruption in the allocation of Shôken Fund monies. During the conflict grants were given to Allied, Axis and neutral countries alike.⁷³ However generous the Japanese Red Cross was via the Shôken Fund, as a national and patriotic organization, it worked alongside the Japanese imperial army in battles and occupations from 1931 to 1945. This is not mentioned in the archives of the Shôken Fund in Geneva at the ICRC headquarters. Japanese Red Cross benevolence was treated as a separate matter to its involvement in conflicts in its region that were the object of separate communications and inquiries to send ICRC observers in China, for example, to monitor the conflict and the resultant atrocities.⁷⁴

Conclusions

In 2012, it was stated that since the first distribution of funds in 1921, the Shôken Fund had distributed over US$26 million to national societies across the globe for peacetime work. This is not a large amount in the grand scheme of things, but a notable contribution from the Japanese nonetheless. The greatest contribution, however, cannot simply be understood in monetary terms. Admittedly, the greatest achievement of the fund was how it enabled the Red Cross movement to transition to peacetime work and public health projects at a pivotal moment in its history. The Shôken Fund was far from being the sole driver of this transition, as indicated by the foundation of the LRCS in 1919. Without the Shôken Fund, however, who knows what would have happened to the ICRC when its finances were perilously low and it was re-grouping in the aftermath of the First World War? How many civilians, for example, would have died from lack of treatment against tuberculosis? In the early 1920s, grants awarded through the Shôken Fund served to finance ongoing or new programmes of works of national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies related to peacetime activities with a strong focus on health and post-war urgent relief. It was reconstruction work, but it went beyond the re-establishment of what had been damaged by the war. Investing in peacetime activities was a form of forward planning that helped to build up capacity and resilience of national societies. The training of nurses, for instance, demonstrated a pro-active approach to local contexts: national societies were no longer institutions that responded to crises but diverse and locally rooted bodies that anticipated and prepared future calamities, be they military, civilian or natural. Such initiatives as the Shôken Fund enabled the Red Cross movement to plan for the future, rather than merely react to a conflict or war. Its action was no longer only reactive: it was now also preventive, a trademark of future Red Cross programmes such as blood transfusion, road safety and development, where the idea was to strike before the worst happened, and indeed prevent it. This was a radical shift across the Red Cross movement, one that made its role more relevant after the war to end all wars. Today, as was the case in 1919, even if the programme of works of the ICRC and of the LRCS (now known as the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies) overlap, their purposes, missions statements and raisons d’être remain different, enabling the movement to support the whole spectrum of human activities. The ICRC’s core mission remains focused on armed conflicts and violence, while the ICRC continues to work in the space of natural disasters, public health and national society development.

Researching the Shôken Fund enables further and broader conclusions about the Red Cross movement itself. First, the pre-war conception of the fund reminds us that the creation of the League of Red Cross Societies in May 1919 was not only a novelty, but the manifestation of a broader trend within the Red Cross world. The creation of the League of Red Cross Societies is therefore best conceptualized as the result of a reflection on peacetime work among diverse national societies rather than a starting point. It took a global war for this convergence to happen, but ideas of peacetime work and public health that were previously seen as secondary for the movement became central to the work of the Red Cross. Second, with its annual awards, the Shôken Fund consolidated Red Cross activities as something ongoing and permanent, rather than temporary and deployed in times of conflict only. The Shôken Fund coupled with the impact of the First World War and, in particular the creation of the LRCS, meant that there could be no demobilization of the Red Cross in the way that armies demobilized after the peace treaties. The Red Cross was to be mobilized constantly to ensure its ongoing relevance and justify its existence. The Red Cross movement had originally been conceived to alleviate the suffering of those wounded on the battlefield. If the Peace Conferences, the League of Nations and the new world order delivered on their promise of long-lasting peace following the ‘war to end all wars’, what would happen to the ICRC and the Red Cross movement? Diversifying its activities into peacetime work, reconstruction and public health was thus not only a progressive development for the movement, but it was also a necessity at an organizational level.

From today’s perspective, and with the benefit of hindsight, the divide between wartime and peacetime activities for the Red Cross movement may seem incongruous given the enduring blurring of boundaries between the states of war and peace. However, the Red Cross leaders of the 1910s and 1920s could not have anticipated that the twentieth century would continue to muddy the distinction between war and peace. They reasoned with their own past – the nineteenth century and previous diplomatic traditions – when trying to pave the future of the movement, with the continuation of an institution that would focus on war work – the ICRC – and the creation of another that would be devoted to peacetime work – the LRCS, born in the aftermath of the First World War. While there were notable exceptions to this framework, accepted international law of the time allowed for declarations of war between states and peace treaties to end conflicts. Even though the ground was shifting, in Armenia and Russia for example, both before and shortly after the First World War, the distinction between war and peace remained critical to state actors and non-state organizations that worked with them, such as the Red Cross. It was this distinction – times of war, times of peace – that was behind the reconceptualization and expansion of the Red Cross world initiated by individuals and national societies, and materialized through the LRCS. This was clear not least in the mind of Henry Davison, the founder of the League. His 1918 and 1919 speeches, addresses and writing posit the distinction between war and peace and between the different types of work required therein. Although these formal distinctions between war and peace did not last, this article has used the ideas and outcomes of the Shôken Fund to demonstrate how the Japanese Red Cross sought to, and did, contribute to transform the Red Cross movement in the first decades of the twentieth century. On the ground, and in Europe in particular, this transformation was heightened by post-First World War reconstruction work supported by the Shôken Fund that assisted in the diversification of the missions and objectives of national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies.

Acknowledgments

We would like to warmly thank our colleagues, Professors Neville Wylie and David Forsythe for their comments on earlier drafts of this article. We are also grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their time and expertise. The reviews they provided us with were highly valuable in helping us tightening and strengthening this article. Any errors that may remain in this article are our own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

Funding for this research was provided by the Australian Research Council through DP190101171, ‘Resilient Humanitarianism? A History of the League of Red Cross Societies, 1919–1991.’

Notes on contributors

Romain Fathi

Romain Fathi is a Senior Lecturer in history at Flinders University and an affiliated researcher at the Centre d’Histoire de Sciences Po. His latest book, Our Corner of the Somme, was published with Cambridge University Press. He is a Chief Investigator for ‘Resilient Humanitarianism: the League of Red Cross Societies, 1919–1991’ (DP190101171). Dr Fathi has also published on the National-Patriotic humanitarianism of the French Red Cross in the interwar period (2021). A selected list of his publications is available at https://romainfathi.com/academic-works.

Melanie Oppenheimer

Melanie Oppenheimer is Honorary Professor in the School of History, ANU, and Emeritus Professor at Flinders University. She is the Lead Chief Investigator on the four-year ARC funded project, ‘Resilient Humanitarianism’ exploring a history of the League of Red Cross Societies (DP190101171). She has been writing on Red Cross Red Crescent histories for over 30 years including the centenary history, The Power of Humanity: 100 Years of Australian Red Cross (2014) and the edited collection with Neville Wylie and James Crossland, The Red Cross Movement: Myths, Practices and Turning Points (2020).

Notes

1. See, for example, Buckingham, For Humanity’s Sake, 41–7; 80–4; 121–5; 132–6 and 176–80; Hutchinson, Champions of Charity, 305–6 and 320–45; and Moorehead, Dunant’s Dream, 261–5 and 282–4.

2. Herrmann, “Décrypter la concurrence humanitaire,” 97–100.

3. Oppenheimer, “Reflections on the Easternisation of the Red Cross Movement,” 23–39.

4. See Pfanner, The Empress Shôken Fund.

5. Dunant, Un souvenir de Solferino; Moorehead, Dunant’s Dream; and Forsythe, The Humanitarians.

6. Dunant, Un souvenir de Solférino.

7. Pineau, La Croix-Rouge française, 46–7.

8. Crossland, “The Americans Lead the Way?” 47–62.

9. Bulletin of the League of Red Cross Societies, vol. 1, no. 1, 1919.

10. Oppenheimer and Collins, Henry Pomeroy Davison, chapter 4; and Forsythe, The Humanitarians, 35–6.

11. There are many studies of various aspects of Red Cross history. One of the most accessible is Moorehead, Dunant’s Dream. For a recent assessment, see Wylie et al., The Red Cross Movement. For a history of the ICRC, see Forsythe, The Humanitarians. For a history of the LRCS, see Buckingham, For Humanity’s Sake, and the commissioned history by Reid and Gilbo, Beyond Conflict. For an analysis of the origins of the League of Red Cross Societies, see Oppenheimer, “‘A Golden Moment’?” 8–27; and Makita, “The Alchemy of Humanitarianism,” 117–29.

12. Checkland’s Humanitarianism and the Emperor’s Japan remains the most comprehensive, if dated, study published in English. There exists, in German, a comprehensive study of Japan and the Japanese Red Cross from 1867 to 1905, see Käser, “Japan und das Rote Kreuz 1867–1905.” See also DePies, “Humanitarian Empire.”

13. Hellyer and Fuess (eds.), The Meiji Restoration.

14. Feifer, Breaking Open Japan; and Austin, Negotiating with Imperialism.

15. Tsunetami (1822 or 1823–1902) was the President of the Japanese Red Cross Society from 1887 to 1902. For a discussion of the origins of the Hakuaisha Society and its links to the emergence of the Japanese Red Cross, see Konishi, “The Emergence of an International Humanitarian Organisation in Japan,” 1129–53.

16. Frank Käser, “A Civilized Nation,” 18–19.

17. Conférence internationale de la Croix-Rouge, Conférences internationales à Paris.

18. Kosuge, “The ‘Non-Religious’ Red Cross Emblem and Japan,” 77.

19. Käser suggests 728,507 in “A Civilized Nation,” 16; Pfanner reports that by the end of the Russo-Japanese war the Japanese Red Cross’s membership was 1.27 million strong; that would make one in 37 Japanese members of the Red Cross. Pfanner, The Empress Shôken Fund, 10. The number is probably somewhere in the middle.

20. Pfanner, The Empress Shôken Fund, 17.

21. Hutchinson, Champions of Charity, 223–4.

22. Oppenheimer, “Reflections on the Easternisation of the Red Cross,” 27.

23. Pfanner, The Empress Shôken Fund, 17.

24. See, for example, Lt Col WG Macpherson RAMC, “The Organisation and Resources of the Red Cross Society of Japan,” 467–78. In 1906, the Japanese Red Cross Society raised funds to support victims of the San Francisco earthquake.

25. For the United States, see Moser Jones, The American Red Cross; Irwin, Making the World Safe; for France: Chevallier, La Croix-Rouge française, 30; and Fathi, “Sovereignty, Democracy and Neutrality,” 1–19. The Italian Red Cross was involved in the Messina earthquake of 1908. For a short discussion and the role played by US nurse Alice Fitzgerald, see Oppenheimer, “Gender, Personalities and the Politics of Humanitarianism.”

26. Ozawa Takeo (1844–1926) was vice president of the Japanese Red Cross from 1902 to 1917, and its representative at the international conferences of the Red Cross and Red Crescent of 1907 in London and 1912 in Washington.

27. The Red Cross in the Far East, 67.

28. Oppenheimer, “Reflections on the Easternisation of the Red Cross,” 29.

29. Tsuji (translated by Masao Nagasawa), Social Welfare Work by the Imperial Household of Japan, 49–52; and see also Tsuji, The Humanitarian Ideas of the Japanese. Empress Shôken was the first Honorary President of the Japanese Red Cross Society, while Imperial Princes Arisugawa Taruhito (1835–95), Komatsu Akihito (1846–1903) and Kan’in Kotohito (1865–1945) also became patrons of the Japanese Red Cross.

30. See for example, Kawamata, The History of the Red Cross Society of Japan. Between 1907 and 1915, the Japanese Red Cross published an English language journal, The Red Cross in the Far East, in an attempt to disseminate its work to a larger international audience. See Oppenheimer, “Reflections on the Easternisation of the Red Cross.”

31. Ibid., 352–3.

32. An official document held at the Imperial Household Archives in Tokyo states that the donation was made at the will of Empress Shôken. Please see: 恩賜録1明治45 大正1年 (Record of Imperial Gifts 1, 1912), Imperial Household Archives, Tokyo, Japan. The authors would like to thank the Imperial Household Archives for their assistance; see email 28 October 2022.

33. Oppenheimer, “Reflections on the Easternisation of the Red Cross,” 29–31 for a discussion of these issues.

34. Iconomow, “The Augusta Fund,” 318.

35. Iconomow, “The Empress Maria Feodorovna Fund,” 355.

36. The Red Cross in the Far East, 49–50.

37. “Fonds de l’Impératrice Shôken,” Bulletin, December 1919, 1500; and Oppenheimer, “Reflections on the Easternisation of the Red Cross,” 30–1.

38. The Red Cross in the Far East, 50.

39. Ishiguro, Japanese Red Cross President to ICRC President, October 10, 1919, in CR 74/004, ICRC, Geneva.

40. Des Gouttes, ICRC, to the Central Committee of the Japanese Red Cross, September 22, 1914, in CR 74/004, ICRC, Geneva.

41. Ishiguro Tadanori (1841–1941) was a military surgeon in the Japanese Army, later commander-in-chief of its medical corps, and president of the Japanese Red Cross from 1917 to 1920.

42. Ishiguro, Japanese Red Cross President to ICRC President, October 10, 1919, in CR 74/004, ICRC, Geneva and quoted in Oppenheimer, “Reflections on the Easternisation of the Red Cross Movement,” 32

43. “Fonds de l’Impératrice Shôken,” Bulletin, December 1919, 1501; and Ishiguro, Japanese Red Cross President to ICRC President, February 17, 1920, in CR 74/004, ICRC, Geneva.

44. For an overview of the cathartic disruption this caused the ICRC, see Moorehead, Dunant’s Dream. For a short study of the League’s founder, American Henry Pomeroy Davison whose energy and vision helped to create the new Red Cross body, see Oppenheimer and Collins, Henry Pomeroy Davison.

45. In letters to his daughter, Ador was explicit about how he felt about the LRCS. Those are quoted and referenced in Herrmann, “Décrypter la concurrence humanitaire,” 93, 95, 97.

46. “Convocation,” 190^e circulaire, ICRC, December 12, 1919 in file Unions Internationales 1139, at the Courneuve site of the archives of the Ministère des Affaires Etrangères (MAE).

47. General Pau, President of the Central Committee of the French Red Cross to Gustave Ador, ICRC President, March 31, 1920, in file Unions Internationales 1139, MAE.

48. The competition and antagonism between the ICRC and the League in the 1920s was intense and has been well attended to by historians. For a comprehensive account of the early tensions, see Moorehead, Dunant’s Dream, especially chapter 10, “The Amiable Gentlemen of Geneva”; and Herrmann, “Décrypter la concurrence humanitaire.”

49. See Circulaire no. 189 dated December 10, 1919, and Circulaire no. 201 dated December 20, 1920, ICRC.

50. 11 April is the date that has been used ever since on Red Cross material although Her Majesty is reported to have died on 9 April 1914.

51. Circulaire no. 189 dated December 10, 1919, ICRC.

52. Such letters of thanks can be found in the Shôken Fund files at the ICRC, series CR 74.

53. See the rich literature discussed in Planert and Retallack, Decades of Reconstruction.

54. Barakat, After the Conflict, 11.

55. For a short historiographical review on sorties de guerre, see Cosima, “Les sorties de guerre,” 5–14.

56. Untitled document signed by the presidents and/or representatives of the Italian, Japanese and Swedish Red Cross national societies dated April 6, 1921, in CR 74/002, ICRC, Geneva.

57. “Fonds de l’Impératrice Shôken, Quelques notes d’ordre historique,” 2 in “Distribution of Shôken Funds,” 1921–1928, CR74/00, ICRC Archives, Geneva.

58. It is unclear what happened to the 13,000 Swiss francs of difference between interest monies that could have been distributed (153,000) and those that actually were (140,000). The ICRC may have used them to cover administrative costs, though this figure is rather large. Bank fees may have been charged when the transfer occurred from the Tokyo Yokohama Bank to the Banque Fédérale de Genève as well, but again, 13000 Swiss francs was a large sum in 1921. Further research is needed to clarify what happened to these monies.

59. “Attribution des revenus du Fonds de l’Impératrice Shôken,” Circulaire no. 207, ICRC, Novembre 11, 1921, ICRC.

60. General Pau to Gustave Ador, March 7, 1921, in CR 74/002, ICRC, Geneva.

61. “Attribution des revenus du Fonds de l’Impératrice Shôken,” Circulaire no. 207, ICRC, Novembre 11, 1921, ICRC.

62. Pfanner, The Empress Shôken Fund, 31.

63. 11th International Conference of the Red Cross, Geneva, August 18, 1923, Report on Funds of Empress Shôkun, Shôkun Fund Archives, CR 74/00, ICRC Archives, Geneva as quoted in Oppenheimer, “Reflections on the Easternisation of the Red Cross Movement,” 33.

64. Pfanner, The Empress Shôken Fund, 31.

65. Oppenheimer and Collins, Henry Pomeroy Davison, 74. For a detailed analysis of the difficult early years of the League, see Buckingham, For Humanity’s Sake. The League of Red Cross Societies sent a Research Commission to Poland in 1920 to investigate typhus. The results were published in The League of Red Cross Societies, The Etiology and Pathology of Typhus.

66. For discussions of public health in the interwar period, see Weindling, International Health Organizations and Movements.

67. Polish Red Cross to Gustave Ador, 1920 and Hellenic Red Cross to Ador, January 4, 1922, in CR 74/1, ICRC, Geneva.

68. The Australian Red Cross is a great example of this phenomenon of moving from a war footing and into the 1920s, focusing on the health and welfare needs of local communities as well as those associated with repatriation and reintegration post war. See Melanie Oppenheimer, The Power of Humanity. For the New Zealand Red Cross, see Tennant, Across the Street, Across the World.

69. Pfanner, The Empress Shôken Fund, 31.

70. “Empress Shôken Fund Grants, 1921-present [2010],” Japanese Red Cross Information Plaza, Tokyo.

71. Pfanner, The Empress Shôken Fund, 43. The 1928 Statute for the International Red Cross sought to draw a line in the sand and cease the bickering between the ICRC and the League. An International Council was formed to ensure co-ordination and co-operation between the two bodies.

72. Ibid., 44–5.

73. “Empress Shôken Fund Grants, 1921-present [2010],” Japanese Red Cross Information Plaza, Tokyo.

74. The way the ICRC and the LRCS dealt with the Japanese Red Cross in the period 1931–45 is yet to be fully documented. Moorehead covers the period but not in detail, see Dunant’s Dream, especially 292–301; 363–70; and chapter 15, “Piercing the Darkness,” 471–99.