GENEVA CONVENTION. An agreement concluded at an international conference which was held at Geneva, 1864, under the piesidency of General Dufour, the Swiss Plenipotentiary, for the purpose of ameliorating the condition of the sick and wounded in time of war. The credit of originating this conference belongs to two citizens of Geneva, Dunant, a physician, who published a startling account of what he had witnessed in two military hospitals on the field of Solferino, and his friend Moynier, chairman of the Society of Public Utility, who took up the idea of 'neutralizing the sick-wagons,' formed associations for its agitation, and at length pressed it upon the governments of Europe, most of which sent representatives to the conference. The convention was drawn up and signed by them on August 22d, and since then it has received the adherence of every European power, and one Asiatic (viz. Persia). The convention consists of ten articles, of which the last two are formal. The others provide: (1) for the neutrality of ambulances and military hospitals as long as they contain any sick; (2) for that of the staff; (3) that the neutrality of these persons shall continue after occupation of their hospitals by the enemy, so that they may stay or depart, as they choose; (4) that if they depart, they can only take their private property with them except in case of ambulances, which they may remove entire; (5) that a sick soldier in a house shall be counted a protection to it, and entitle its occupants to exemption from the quartering of troops and from part of the war requisitions; (6) that wounded men shall, when cured, be sent back to their own country on condition of not bearing arms during the rest of the war; (7) that hospitals and ambulances shall carry, in addition to the flag of their nation, a distinctive and uniform flag bearing a red cross on a white ground, and that their staff shall wear an arm badge of the same colors; (8) that the details shall be left to the commanders.
A second conference was held at Geneva on the same subject in 1868, and a supplementary con vention drawn up. It consists partly of inter pretations of the former convention, and partly of an application of its principles to maritime wars. Its main provisions are these: That when a person engaged in an ambulance or hospital occupied by the enemy desires to depart, the com mander-in-chief shall fix the time for his depart ure, and when he desires to remain, that he be paid his full salary; that account shall be taken in exacting war requisitions not only of the actual lodging of wounded men, but of any dis play of charity toward them; that the rule which permits cured soldiers to return home on condi tion of not serving again shall not apply to officers, for their knowledge might be useful; that hospital ships, merchantmen having wounded on board, and boats picking up wounded and wrecked men shall be neutral; that they shall carry the red-cross flag, and their men the red-cross armlet; that hospital ships belonging to the Government shall be painted white with a green strake; those of aid societies white with a red strake; that in naval wars, any strong presumption that the con vention is being abused by one of the belligerents shall give the other the right of suspending it toward that power till the contrary is proved, and, if the presumption becomes a certainty, of suspending it to the end of the war. See RED CROSS SOCIETIES ; WAR.