The ‘merciful and loving sex’: Concepción Arenal’s narratives on Spanish Red Cross women’s war relief work in the 1870s

Abstract

ABSTRACTSpain signed the Geneva Convention in 1864 and the Spanish Red Cross Society (SRC) was established in July of that year. Yet, only after 1870 the SRC revived and quickly expanded, forming local and provincial committees as well as ladies' sections. This revival mostly resulted from, first, the activation of humanitarian sensibilities and networks on the occasion of the Franco-Prussian war (1870–1871), and then, the general mobilization of the SRC in reaction to the Carlist war of 1872–1876. This article examines the humanitarian work of Spanish women throughout this period through the intervention of the SRC ladies' sections, especially the central one. It reveals that these women played a crucial role in organizing, deploying and sustaining its humanitarian relief to the combatants. They empowered themselves by taking advantage of, and contributing to, the spreading of a view of women – very common at the time – as having a specific gender ‘instinct’ that made them ‘naturally’ suited to charitable and compassionate tasks. Pacifism is present in the humanitarian views and practices of these women, particularly in the case of Concepción Arenal (1820–1893), a social reformer, lawyer and writer, who was fully involved with the SRC during the Carlist war.