The American Red Cross storehouse. Note the American and Red Cross flags, made by Austrian POWs to denote, and protect the international relief workers. (MSS 97 Item 56, Special Collections, University of Delaware Library, Newark, Delaware. , Special Collections, University of Delaware Library, Newark, Delaware.)
In the first days of October, 1915, Osborn and Fox relocated their own living quarters to the hospital. They moved Red Cross provisions to the Lady Paget Hospital and secured supplies of gasoline in preparation for moving the wounded after the imminent battle. Osborn and Fox affixed American Flags to Red Cross storehouses and Ford Ambulances: “We raised the United States flag over our storehouse and it certainly looked good side of the Red Cross Flag despite the fact that it was home made. The American Flag was made for us by the Austrian Prisoners at the Paget Hospital. Using my little silk flag as a model, they sewed red flannel on a sheet, making thirteen stripes, used a blue shirt for the blue field in the corner and then sewed on some stars.”[1] The Americans and their Austrian orderlies predicted that the neutral status of the Red Cross mission would protect supplies and people from harm. In the relative calm before the battle for Skoplje, both Osborn and Lady Paget worked to secure the hospital grounds from both armies, though they were short on time.
In the relative calm before the battle for Skoplje, both Osborn and Lady Paget worked to secure the hospital grounds from both armies, though they were short on time. As supplies were gathered at the hospital, Lady Paget and her staff became increasingly concerned by four guns placed on a parapet outside the hospital. Fearing that the guns would draw fire upon the hospital as well as the wounded already arriving from fighting outside the city, Lady Paget personally entreated the Serbian Commander in Skoplje to have the guns removed. Out of respect for the work done by the hospital staff, the commander ordered the guns removed. From then on, in Lady Paget’s words, “we relied on our Red Cross flag rather than the four guns for our defense.”[1] This last request made by Lady Paget of the Serbian Commander is symbolic of the relationship that she and her mission had fostered with the Army. Lady Paget never specifically pointed to the Geneva Conventions as the hospital’s protection before the invasion, but her words regarding the use of the symbol of the Red Cross, as well as their work as a neutral medical unit closely mirror the ideas in the Conventions. Lady Paget, however, was an educated, upper class woman from Britain, whose husband had served in several places in the British Foreign Service. With this background, it is likely that she knew of the Conventions, and perhaps even evoked them for the protection of her staff.
Evacuation or Entrenchment? Battle for Skoplje
Doctors Beyond Borders: Serbian Relief in 1915 
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