The first, and still the chief, object of the Red Cross is to mitigate the suffering caused by war.

Man, from earliest time, has sought to prevent war if possible, and to mitigate its consequences when it does occur. By the “Truce of God” first recorded in 1027, fighting, then recognised as the occupation of a gentleman, was forbidden under ecclesiastical sanctions, from Thursday morning to Sunday night. This is an approach to the outlawing of war. Still older, dating from the Council of Charroux in 980, was the “Peace of God” which declared inviolable during war, the persons of peasants, merchants, and pilgrims and especially of priests, monks and nuns—on whose care the wounded and sick depended at that time.