Performing Compassion in Wartime

Abstract

The civil wars of Spain in the 1870s were the true baptism of fire for the Spanish Red Cross (SRC) and the first major civil conflict that the Red Cross international movement had to confront in its early times. This article explores the humanitarian narratives during the Second Carlist War (1872-1876) by two major leaders of the early SRC: the medical officer and its first general inspector, Nicasio Landa (1830-1891), and the lawyer, social reformer, and first secretary of the SRC’s Central Section of Ladies, Concepción Arenal (1820-1893). By means of letters, reports, and articles addressed to rather different audiences, both of them aimed to perform civilian population’s compassion toward the victims of the civil war and to empower emergent humanitarian bodies such as the SRC.