Relief agencies during World War I cared for the sick and wounded, supplied essentials like food and shelter and cared for civilians displaced by violence. Among these relief agencies, the Red Cross is perhaps the most recognizable. Most relief groups were organized at a national, rather than an international level. Throughout the war this led to tension between relief workers and armies as they tried to navigate a space in which both groups could accomplish their goals. Unlike the stereotypically stagnant Western Front in France, the Eastern Front in the Balkans was geographically dynamic and changing. For relief workers, this meant that as the war progressed, there was no place that was safe from invasion. In turn, relief workers were forced to renegotiate their neutrality as lands were conquered and reconquered.
For groups working closely together in Serbia, the ability to operate in in Eastern Front depended first on the Serbian Government, then on the invading forces of Bulgaria, Austria, and finally Germany. The treatment of the aid groups by the conquering forces depended largely on the nationality of the workers and the aid that was offered to the conquering army.
This exhibition uses two primary documents, each of which opens a window into what it must have been like to serve as an international aid worker in the increasingly violent Eastern Front. The first was the diary of Stanley Hart Osborn, a volunteer for the Red Cross Sanitation Commission to Serbia in 1915. His diary covers his journey from May 1915, when he left the United States, until he returned in 1916. He kept meticulous notes on what the Red Cross was doing, and how it was operating with local authorities; he detailed the collaboration of the Red Cross with the Serbian Relief Fund, in Skoplje [Uskab], Serbia, and kept record of the discussions of relief workers as they dealt with each new invading force.
The second documents are two published reports of the Serbian Relief Fund, as reported by Lady Louisa Margaret Leila Paget. The Relief Fund, like the Red Cross, was responding to an outbreak of typhus, but found that the need for their aid extended far beyond the infectious disease hospital. Lady Paget became an advocate of her hospital and staff, as well as of the civilian and military populations that came to rely on the aid supplied by her hospital.
This exhibit is arranged both chronologically and thematically, with easy navigation using the menu at the top of the page, or use the links at the bottom of each page to navigate from page to page.
Doctors Beyond Borders: Serbian Relief in 1915 