BOOKS OF JEREMIAH

THE AMERICAN RED CROSS HUMANITARIAN EFFORTS IN MONTENEGRO (1915–1919)

UDC: 614.885(73):94(497.16)”1915/1919”
DOI: 10.34298/IC2069471V

Biljana VUČETIĆ
Institute of History
Belgrade

Abstract: This article considers the relief work of the American Red Cross in wartime and postwar Montenegro, between 1915 and 1919. It is based on primary sources of American provenance, such as reports submitted by the American Red Cross field workers. Many U.S. sanitary officers, doctors, nurses, and social workers arrived in Serbia and Montenegro during WWI, and a great many more after the signing of the armistice. Their notes and reports, along with the official documents, represent valuable sources on the humanitarian situation in the war-torn countries in the Balkans.
Keywords: American Red Cross, Montenegro, USA, WWI, relief work.

Апстракт: У раду је размотрен хуманитарни рад Америчког црвеног крста у ратном и послератном периоду у Црној Гори, између 1915. и 1919. године. Заснован је на примарним изворима америчке провенијенције, попут извештаја са терена хуманитараца Америчког црвеног крста. Бројни амерички санитетски официри, лекари, медицинске сестре и социјални радници дошли су у Србију и Црну Гору током Првог светског рата, а још већи број њих стигао је после закључења примирја. Њихове белешке и извештаји, уз званичне документе, представљају вредне изворе о хуманитарној ситуацији у ратом разореним земљама на Балкану. Кључне речи: Aмерички црвени крст, Црна Гора, САД, Први светски рат, хуманитарни рад

Introduction

Even after the centennial of World War I, the role of the American relief work in wartime and the postwar period in European societies is an area for research. This particularly refers to the Balkan states. The American presence in Montenegro was already a subject of interest for historians.1 The relations between Montenegro and the USA, since the establishment of diplomatic relations until their termination in 1921, with regard to the American Red Cross (hereinafter: ARC) from 1919 to 1922, have been a topic of a broad study by Montenegrin researchers.2 Recent works of Montenegrin publicists and researchers on this subject were mainly based on the impressions of Henry Rushton Fairclough, one of the heads of the ARC Unit in Montenegro.3 Yet, there are many reports and personal notes of the ARC relief workers. For instance, most of the results in this paper concerning the humanitarian aid in WWI are based on Dr. Stanley Hart Osborn’s memoir, A Diary of the American Red Cross Sanitary Commission to Serbia 1915–16.4 Osborn’s notes from Montenegro relate to the time spent from 23 June to 5 July in Đakovica and between 18–23 June and 5–30 July in Peć.

The work of the ARC in Montenegro was only a segment of U.S. foreign assistance to Europe during and after the Great War. As Julia Irwin established, “the ARC’s civilian health and welfare efforts form an essential part of this broader story of American postwar international humanitarianism”.5 Before the humanitarian catastrophe in WWI, the American Red Cross offered help to Montenegro during the Malissori uprisings in 1910/1911 and the Balkan War in 1912.6 The period researched in this paper starts in 1915, with the organized work of the Sanitary Commission, and ends in 1919, the year of establishment of the ARC Commission for Montenegro. During the next phase, from 1919 to 1922, the American Junior Red Cross entered the stage and played an extensive role in the ARC relief work. The US relief activities took place in politically
unstable circumstances in the region. Still, both the American troops and the ARC relief workers managed to avoid participation in armed conflicts between Italy and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, as well as in the civil struggles in Montenegro.7

Waiting for tomorrow: wartime efforts

The Rockefeller Foundation War Relief Commission reported in March 1915 that “typhus fever, typhoid fever, and recurrent fever are epidemic in Serbia, and that cholera is expected with the warmer weather of spring”.8 As such situation was a menace not only to Serbia but also to the surrounding countries, the American Red Cross, at the suggestion and with the financial assistance of the Rockefeller Foundation, sent Sanitary Commission experts to Europe to aid in controlling these epidemics, under the directorship of Dr. Richard P. Strong, a professor of tropical diseases at Harvard University.9 Forty-three members of the American Red Cross Sanitary Commission arrived in Serbia in April and May. The Commission consisted of sanitary engineers, physicians, bacteriologists, sanitary inspectors, and other experts in the field of epidemiology. The headquarters of the Commission was established in Skopje and from there units were sent to Bitola, Tetovo, Štip, Kumanovo, Prilep, Ohrid, Dojran, Đevđelija, Niš, Kriva Palanka, Vranje, Peć, Đakovica, Prizren, Mitrovica, and Ferizović.

Late in May 1915, Director Richard P. Strong decided to survey the situation in Montenegro. After the inspection of hospitals in Mitrovica, he departed on horseback to the town of Peć. He was accompanied by the commission’s storekeeper Hobart Brink, an interpreter, and a Serbian gendarme.10 Since there was no carriage waiting for them at the Serbian-Montenegrin border, the group traveled in the saddle or on foot for fourteen hours. In Peć, they found unsanitary conditions at the hotel, the rooms did not have a bathroom and toilet. Dr. Strong immediately inspected the hospital which was “in a dreadful and very alarming state”.11 In the first room on the floor, he saw many piles of clothing that belonged to typhus cases. Crawling over them and on the floor were thousands of lice. There were no disinfectants in the hospital, no means
for bathing the patients, no clean clothes and bed linen, and the latrines were in a horrible state. Strong concluded that the hospital badly neglected around 250 typhus cases and that it was very important to introduce urgent sanitary measures.

After a long interview, the town authorities agreed that Peć should be quarantined. The first step was the disinfection of hospitals and patients, army barracks, clothes, and bedding. Americans provided clean underclothes and night shirts for all of the patients.12 The official Montenegrin newspapers Glas Crnogorca reported on the American mission in Peć.13 Dr. Strong requested from the authorities a detailed report on Montenegro’s medical needs in personnel and sanitary equipment, so the article expressed hope that relief would be coming soon.

Director Strong encountered a new problem in Dečani, where several thousand soldiers were quartered in the monastery, and typhus appeared among those who came from Peć. The conditions in Đakovica were similar to those in Dečani since typhus had broken out among troops who also came from Peć. There were ninety typhus cases in the main hospital, so Strong arranged for all people coming from Peć to Đakovica to be intercepted and held in quarantine ten days outside the town. Since the town authorities had no money, Strong purchased a thousand kilos of lime and also some disinfectants.14 Having assessed the health risks in Montenegro, Dr. Strong decided to put doctor Francis Grinnell in charge of Peć.15 Doctors Shattuck and Zinsser joined Grinnel in the effort to prevent a further spread of typhus in Montenegro.16

A few weeks later, on 18 June 1915, the sanitary inspector of the Commission Dr. Stanley Hart Osborn embarked on a mission to Montenegro.17 He was accompanied by Clement B. Chinn, a captain in the Sanitary Department of the United States Army, and a Serbian interpreter called “Mike”.18 At the Montenegrin border, they met with two Montenegrin soldiers who waited for them with three carriages and a two-wheeled gig. Osborn described Montenegrin soldiers as “splendid six-foot men”.19

At first, Osborn noticed that a road in Montenegro was better than in Serbia, because it was leveled and well-paved, with ditches on both sides.20 Their first station was Peć and Americans were housed in the Patriarchate of Peć monastery. The hospital in Peć was completely under the control of fellow doctors Grinnel, Shattuck, and Zinsser, so it was decided to send newcomers to deliver supplies to Đakovica. The equipment included 2,000 pounds of sulfur, 20 iron pans, 20 Dutch ovens (a cast iron pot with a lid, used for boiling clothes), two bathtubs, five gallons of alcohol, knapsack pumps, hair clippers, 100 pieces of hospital clothing, 20 whitewash brushes, bandages, phenotosol, kerosene, iodine, boric ointment, and other disinfectants.21

Since the Montenegrin authorities could not immediately provide the oxcarts for Đakovica, because all of them were gone to get ammunition from Mitrovica, Osborn and Chinn strolled up the trail which led to Cetinje, taking pictures of the river Bistrica and the surrounding caves.22 In the sub-basement of the barracks in Peć they found thousands of very old heavy pistols, “old flint-locks”, covered with brass, and they were allowed to take a few.23

With no sign of the ox-wagons the following day, American sanitarians wasted no time and decided to get busy in Peć. They joined forces with the interpreters, Serbian Mike, and Montenegrin Regick (Redžić), along with four natives, to pull knapsack pumps on their backs and disinfect all public toilets (noozniks, as Osborn calls them). Still, Americans complained that they could not count on the native population for help, and that the only word he kept hearing was sootra (tomorrow).24 While in Serbia there were numerous Austrian war prisoners, who were held responsible for the typhus spread, in Montenegro there were none. Osborn believed the rumors that Montenegrins were simply not taking prisoners.

After spending a couple of days at the monastery in Peć, Osborn finally got the oxcarts and left for Đakovica. Still, the wagons were so small that they were not able to carry more than two boxes of sulfur. Americans immediately surveyed Đakovica (Jacovitza), which was said to be the largest Montenegrin city with 17,000 to 20,000 inhabitants. After inspecting the public toilets, hospitals, city hall, and pharmacy, they started to work at the Infectious Diseases Hospital. First, they had to fumigate the place, then to empty mattresses and burn the straw. The sacks were disinfected with boiling water, mercury bichloride, or steam. Fumigation was followed by spraying with phinotas oil, a coal tar combination with resin, which killed eggs and was also useful for spraying mosquitoes. The hospital toilets and bed frames were disinfected as well. Finally, the American team lit sulfur, whitewashed the hospital, and limed all closets. The problem was the General Hospital because the head doctor (Voochinovich) refused to evacuate the premises, claiming that the hospital did not need cleaning.

Osborn heard that Albanians “will fight to the last before surrendering to Montenegro”, and noted that church services were held in Đakovica on 28 May, for the success of the Montenegrin Army at Scutari.25 Americans attempted to start an educational program among the civilian population, instructing shopkeepers to protect the raw food with mosquito nets, but it happened only when the chief gendarme enforced the screening of food.26

On 5 July, Osborn was happy to be back in Peć. He was impressed by the monastery and its medieval art. On several occasions, Osborn spent quality time with the Metropolitan, enjoying joint walks in the garden or along the river, going to picnics in Metropolitan’s fiacre, or simply chatting with him with a glass of koniak (cognac).27 Americans began with sanitary work in Peć: they disinfected the typhus hospital in Peć, whitewashed the schoolhouse, and fumigated all of the six mosques and eight rooms and the toilette in the monastery. In Peć Osborn was able to lead a social life. He met the Russian attaché from Cetinje, who came with his wife and two daughters.28 In the first week of July, the English Wounded Allies Relief unit, which consisted of ten women and two men, arrived in Peć. The English received 76 bull wagons of supplies and provided Americans with rare commodities – Nestlé condensed milk and orange jam. At the end of his stay, Osborn heard rumors that Montenegro was making a separate peace with the Central Powers and joining Austria against Serbia.29 He left Montenegro on 30 July, leaving in Peć engineer E. H. Gage, to assess the necessary repairs of the city sewers.

Both Dr. Strong and Dr. Osborn had to cooperate with Montenegrin officials. Strong had a long interview concerning sanitary measures with the General and the Prefect “who is a first cousin of the King”.30 Dr. Osborn often went to negotiate with General Janković and the Mayor, about transport or the enforcement of sanitary measures, but he emphasized that what the Prefect could get by force, he got, reluctantly giving any help.31 They were intrigued, but also afraid of Albanians. Dr. Strong noted that Albanians were very unfriendly to the Montenegrins, so he got the guard of six gendarmes escorting him near the Albanian border. He preferred to camp in the open on the Albanian border, and to take the risk of being shot rather than to sleep in a typhus-infected hotel.32 The Albanians whom Osborn usually met on the road were “tough old characters, many with donkeys and mules loaded with army supplies, sugar, etc”.33

However, the American heard that armed Albanians were nearby and that they were “very troublesome at the present time… so it is perhaps lucky that we are within the monastery walls, which are over sixteen feet high”.34

In the winter of 1915, the ARC shipments to Montenegro and Serbia were interrupted. There was only one shipment of the American Red Cross to Montenegro in January, which consisted of 72 cases of financial worth less than 2,500 dollars. The next shipment of war relief supplies to Montenegro was made on 30 March 1916 by the ship San Giorgio. It consisted of 49 cases and valued only 535 dollars. According to the Official Statement of the American Red Cross, there were six shipments of supplies to Montenegro from September 1914 to April 1916, in the total value of $19,510, which is less than 460,000 dollars today. In the designated period, the ARC sent to Serbia 21 shipments with 13,902 packages, in the total value of $214,155, which is worth over five million dollars today.35

Even before the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Montenegro in January 1916, there were problems with food and supplies. For instance, in 1915 Italians declared the blockade of the ports, so it was difficult to transport the supplies.36 In January 1916 the Montenegrin consul in the United States, Anto Seferović turned to the ARC for supplies.37 He appealed to the ex-President of the USA William Howard Taft to support Montenegro’s plea to the Secretary of State, Lansing, and to put pressure on the government in Vienna to ensure the safe unloading of food for the starving population.38

At the beginning of 1917, Austro-Hungarian authorities in Montenegro acknowledged that there was a shortage of food.39 King Nicholas claimed that between three hundred thousand and four hundred thousand people in Montenegro were near starvation. During the meeting at Neuilly on 25 March 1917, King Nicholas asked American ambassador in France William Sharp to secure the permission for food supplies to be shipped from the Italian port of Brindisi to Montenegro, “unmolested by the Austrian fleet”. It was also suggested that a representative of the US government could take charge of the food distribution in Montenegro to prevent the possible confiscation by the Austrians.40 In May, the Montenegrin government at Neuilly informed the American ambassador that Montenegro was in a severe economic and financial crisis and that its population was famished since it was never a country which produced cereals. The US government was asked to consider the provisioning of Montenegro, by allowing the shipment of two million kilograms of corn. The Austrians did not care for the suffering population; the corn, potatoes and soap were sold at exorbitant prices.41 Moreover, the occupier’s authorities were requisitioning food and cattle and rationing the wheat to 200 grams per person per day and sold for gold the rest of the requisitioned food. This kind of policy during the occupation led to epidemic diseases and famine in certain areas of Montenegro, in Nikšić, Piva, Golija, and Bratonožići.42

In August 1918, the Montenegrin Red Cross appealed to the American Red Cross to send financial support to the Metropolitan of Montenegro and to ship from 2,000 to 4,000 tons of foodstuffs and clothing as relief measures owing to the reported desperate condition of the civil population of Montenegro. Nevertheless, the Secretary of State would not follow different policies than already followed in Serbia, where supplies were not permitted to enter, owing to reported confiscation by Austrian authorities.43 In the next Montenegrin appeal in October, the ambassador to the US, General Anto Gvozdenović, asked from Lansing the means to provide for the urgent needs of the starved population, saying that “500,000 souls are deprived of every necessity in food as well as in wearing apparel”.44 As Serbian military sources found, upon the withdrawal of Austro-Hungarian forces, there was the lack of food in Montenegro and in North Albania, owing to war devastation and destruction left by the enemy.45

At the end of the war, the American Red Cross was ready to resume relief work in the Balkans. The Balkan Commission of the ARC was created in late October 1918, to coordinate under one administration all the work of the organization in the Balkan states. Commissions to Serbia and Greece were already on the ground, from July and September 1918. On 9 November, the State Department allowed the American Red Cross to ship supplies of food and clothing for the civilian population of Montenegro.46 So, with the signing of the armistice, the ARC Commissions were sent to Montenegro and Albania, and at the same time, a Commission to the Balkans was appointed to coordinate the Red Cross work in Southeastern Europe.

Montenegro’s Dire Want: postwar ARC efforts

The first Director of the ARC Unit to Montenegro, from January to 28 April 1919, was Major Elliot G. Dexter. There were 37 members of the Unit, including nurses and doctors, officers, clerks and drivers who brought medical goods and Ford cars. Major Lionel A. B. Street was a head doctor and Georgia Greene was a chief nurse, until 15 April, when she was succeeded by Lena Margaret Johnson.47 The advance unit to Montenegro sailed from Toulon, France, on 8 January, aboard the former hospital ship Asie. A Yugoslav naval officer (former navigation officer on an Austrian submarine) got on the ship in Corfu and helped steer a safe course around the minefields of the Adriatic. Americans were welcomed in Kotor by Đuro Vukotić, a former Dalmatian deputy to the Austrian Reichsrat.48 Immediately upon his arrival, Major Dexter wrote a Memorandum of Basic Information on Montenegro. In this document, written in response to the ARC request for the survey of conditions, dated 8 February 1919, he summarized the existing effects of the war on transportation and population, as well as what areas were most devastated and what was the current food and clothing situation.

Major Dexter reported that before the retreat, Austrians destroyed bridges in various parts of the country. He immediately requested a “low bridge” repaired, at some twelve kilometers from Podgorica, on the road to Cetinje. The second repaired bridge was a “high arched one, almost on the outskirts of Podgorica”. Major Dexter’s unit found two bridges between Podgorica and Kolašin so damaged that they were completely useless.49 Austrians also took automobiles or destroyed them, so Americans had to bring their vehicles. The good things Austrians did during the occupation were the construction of an aerial tramway from Cetinje to Kotor, capable of carrying twenty tons of merchandise daily, and the creation of a narrow gauge railway between Podgorica and Lake Scutari. Both constructions were put out of commission during the Austrian retreat, but Major Dexter asked General Venel and the American military engineers to find the solution to make them functional again. Still, there were some doubts if the Montenegrins used railway sleepers for firewood.50

In Dexter’s opinion, there seemed to be no serious displacement of people, because there very only a few unoccupied houses. He noted that considerable numbers were killed in the military service, and some were driven out in the direction of Scutari in the pre-war times. Also, the first ARC unit did not see any devastation of the Montenegrin territory, except military barracks in Podgorica and a storehouse on the shores of Lake Scutari. There were some air raids in Podgorica, but Americans did not notice any damage to buildings.51

Unlike many reports from Montenegro which indicated that the Austrian occupation had depleted the country’s food and clothing supplies, a memorandum of 20 February 1919 claims that there was no serious food shortage, at least in Cetinje and Podgorica. Major Dexter supposed that prices in the open markets in towns were high, and people suffered from the lack of food because of the scarcity of money. Actually, he saw “rows of carcasses in the meat shops and piles of bread, as well as quantities of beans, potatoes, cabbages and other common foodstuff in the markets”.52

However, Dexter expressed concerns as to the real scarcity of clothing. Many people were shabbily or scantily dressed, and he strongly suggested the ARC should do something to alleviate the situation. Yet, on one market day in Cetinje, he saw much clothing on sale, between forty and fifty heavy coats and roughly the same number of shoes and boots. He even bought himself a sheep-skin vest with wool. Surprisingly, comments of the Director of the ARC Unit to Montenegro in this memorandum differ from the reports of civilian distress which were the reason for forming the Commission in the first place. No wonder that Major Dexter resigned as the Director of the Unit on 28 April and was replaced by more suitable Major Henry Rushton Fairclough.53

The reports in the official organs of the ARC were quite different. The American National Red Cross Annual Report for the Year 1919 said that a preliminary survey in Montenegro disclosed conditions that seemed to be almost without comparison. It was explained that seven years of constant warfare caused “a more complete breakdown of economic conditions than existed almost anywhere else in Europe… By the time the Red Cross Unit arrived, a great many had already died of starvation and many others had frozen to death”.54

The ARC report stated that the basic commodities such as butter and fats could not be found at any price and that drug stores were empty. A pair of shoes was extremely expensive, and 90 per cent of people were in rags. During the first two months of its activity, the Unit distributed 100,000 soup luncheons. Still, there was a problem with food. It was distributed in sufficient quantities to prevent hunger, but something had to be done to encourage people to embrace self-supporting production.55 According to certain accounts, the prices of food were enormous, and rice, sugar and macaroni were impossible to find.56

In early March, the New York Times published an article on Montenegro’s dire need for food. According to the commission sent by the American peace delegation to inquire into conditions in Montenegro, the population was actually dying from starvation.57 The correspondent of the Los Angeles Times claimed that Montenegro was in a pitiable state, the inhabitants were destitute, and that houses were burned or smashed by shellfire. There were no working tools and no seeds to plant.58

American relief workers faced almost impossible transportation conditions in getting food into the mountains of Montenegro. They had to use donkeys and pack horses on the hardly accessible roads.59 In an attempt to reach inaccessible communities, they took apart a large truck, and transported it by pack-mules across the rivers and broken paths and then reassembled it at the ARC base, such as Kolašin.60 The Red Cross Bulletin reported that doctors and nurses of the Commission to Montenegro had to make daily trips in the hinterland since there were numerous cases of pneumonia and influenza. Also, the Austrian pillage left Montenegrins without sheep and cattle, as well as without blankets and clothes, and hunger and diseases prevailed in the country.61 The Annual Report counted malaria as the prevailing disease, with tuberculosis a close second. Also, infant mortality was high.62

A foreign correspondent for the Los Angeles Times explained the lack of garments by the fact that before the war most of the clothing worn by the Montenegrins, either of linen or wool, was made by the women at home. Only a small number of officials and tradesman used imported cloth. In the time of war, no clothes were produced, and after the war people only worked to produce food, and no one could spare time for spinning or weaving. That is why the Montenegrin people were clothed in burlap sacking, concluded the correspondent.63 The ARC relief workers also wondered how the people, especially the women, carried heavy bundles on their heads. “They walk barefoot or with home-made sandals, which have soles of hide and laced upper parts. As for clothes they wear normally the picturesque native costumes, but owing to the war they have had no material for clothes and at present they are all in rags“, wrote the source of the Red Cross Bulletin.64

Given the negative experiences of the American unit in Đevđelija in 1915, the ARC National Headquarters decided for the personnel in the Balkans to arrange for themselves comfortable and decent lodgings close to the ARC Headquarters and hospital in a particular town.65 At first, the ARC in Podgorica had a sixty-bed hospital located in old military barracks. In April it was moved to the residence of Prince Mirko. The American staff used the ground level, the first floor was occupied by the patients with acute conditions and the second floor was reserved for convalescents and native co-laborers and orderlies.66 The house was large and modern and had a beautiful garden, but Commissioner Fairclough was interested in the nearby remains of the ancient city of Dioclea. During his afternoon strolls he found a number of ancient Roman and early Byzantine coins, dating from the second century CE.67 The Commissioner was stricken with the poverty of people, “probably the most ragged people in Europe”.68 He was mainly worried about the children, who were almost naked in the winter. Thus, the ARC primarily distributed clothing and soap and organized soup kitchens in Podgorica, Cetinje, Nikšić, Kolašin, and Grahovo. Colonel Fairclough pointed out that Americans established two orphanages for hundreds of children in Podgorica and Danilovgrad.69

The head nurse Johnson tried to engage Montenegrin girls aged about 18, to help with the patients, but their patriarchal upbringing taught them that the word of a man was a command which consequently slowed them down. Over time, they gradually learned that the word of the American medical worker, whether male or female, had the greatest power. The other problem was the lack of primary education because after a year’s training the girls could not read a thermometer.70 There were fifty to ninety patients daily in the Podgorica hospital. Nurses Mabel Nelson and Sara McCarron did house calls and visited twenty to thirty families each day. Nurse McCarron was stricken with great poverty in the Muslim part of the town, where she saw houses without beds and dirty and hungry people sleeping on dirty floors.71

Also, the nurses started nursing in primary schools in Podgorica. Each month they inspected 500 children in the primary school, who were in a pitiful condition. Most of them were infested with lice and scabies or suffered from impetigo and nephritis. They were treated in the ARC dispensary, along with tuberculosis, malnutrition, scurvy, pneumonia, and influenza cases.72 Mr. Tuckerman was in charge of the large soup kitchen for a thousand people in Podgorica. They served 150 grams of bread and one large cup of vegetable and bacon soup for Christians, and a similar one for Muslims, only with vegetable oil instead of bacon.73

Nurses Emily Chaney, Emma Robbins, and Edith Burgess were on medical duty in Nikšić, a town of five thousand inhabitants. They also maintained a soup kitchen for the poor. One correspondent from Nikšić noticed that the American Red Cross each day gave everyone a kilo of bread and two quarts of thick, meaty soup. American nurses visited the sick from dawn to sundown, each nurse attending to about fifty sick persons daily.74

In the spring of 1919, the ARC workers made a base in Kolašin and did rural visiting nursing, but the unit was in constant danger because of comitadji. American Red Cross officers Captain Richard Keller and Captain John Cathey were attacked “by members of a mountaineer band” while taking a camion loaded with relief supplies from Podgorica to Kolašin. Fortunately, they managed to explain that they were Americans trying to help the sick and wounded, and were released. Lt. James Ashworth was held up by an armed band in the mountains between Kotor and Cetinje, but he managed to escape, speeding up his motor truck.75

Nurse Elizabeth Mitchell transformed the Prince’s Palace in Cetinje into a sanitary building, so the five thousand inhabitants could count on medical help as well as on a day nursery for children of working mothers and children with tuberculosis. The Montenegrin Women’s Club organized the orphanage and nurse Mitchell did everything she could to help: the ARC commission provided food, clothing, bedding and toothbrushes to children.76 Nurse Bernice Brady wondered how people in Cetinje survived without basic sanitary conditions, in crowded houses, without clothes, food and heating in the winter and without water in the summer. She concluded that Montenegro was rich in only one thing – history and tradition. “The story of Montenegro is one of constant fighting to retain their freedom and they boast that they have never been conquered. The men are used for the Army and the women do practically all the manual labor”, explained nurse Bernice Brady.77

In the spring of 1919, the American Red Cross doctors in Montenegro received reinforcement from the American Women’s Hospitals.78 The team of fourteen women doctors were sent as a medical aid to Serbia, and two of them, Dr. Catharine M. Cook and Dr. Dora Bowman, proceeded to Montenegro.79 Dr. Bowman was a circular surgeon, in charge of making rounds between three hospitals in Montenegro. She performed there over three hundred operations, including almost everything in general and special surgery, such as over sixty herniotomies, a number of laparotomies, appendectomies, splenotomies, nephrectomies, dermoid and plain ovarian cysts, epitheliomas of face, carcinomas, tubercular lesions, and numerous gunshot wounds.80 She even helped a passenger give birth in a train compartment. “We wrapped the infant in swaddling clothes and named him ‘Theodore Roosevelt’”, wrote Dr. Bowman in her report to the AWH Headquarters.81 A high official of the ARC, Frederick Keppel, the ARC’s Director of Foreign Operations since 1918, stated that American women physicians in Southeastern Europe had a unique opportunity to work among Muslim women who refused to be examined by a male doctor.82

Frederick Keppel emphasized that the Red Cross was one among many of relief agencies in Serbia or Poland, but on the other hand, it was practically alone in Montenegro and Albania. There was a need for medical and nursing service, because in the autumn of 1919, there were only eight native physicians left in all of Montenegro.83 Two years later, Major Joseph Jaros, the medical director of the ARC Commission in Montenegro, reported that there were only twelve native physicians, who were aged and unacquainted with modern methods, and bound by traditions which restricted their work. Therefore, people largely depended on ARC doctors.84 Also, the Red Cross introduced dentistry to Montenegro and in the first few months of 1919 Captain Bruce Wolff extracted over 1,500 teeth.85

In June 1919, the need for relief was still great, and the Red Cross forces were very active in the Balkans. The Commission for Montenegro received $100,228.94 for medical relief, distribution of supplies, and operation of the Commission.86 Even though the Commission for Serbia received over one million dollars, and the Commission for Greece over 469,000 dollars, the ARC Unit for Montenegro was granted considerable funds.87

The food supply gained political significance, owing to the political climate in Montenegro. For instance, British diplomat Count de Salis who visited Montenegro on a special mission, in June 1919 spoke with Dr. Whitlock, the head of the American Red Cross mission in Nikšić, and claimed that the Serbian authorities did absolutely nothing for the people unless putting them in prison. Dr. Whitlock said that there was much destitution in the town: they had great difficulty in getting accommodation for some of the poorest whom they wished to house and feed. The ARC unit in Nikšić handed over to the Serbian authorities food and clothes for distribution to the poor, but nothing was distributed; and the explanation given to Dr. Whitlock was that orders did not come from Belgrade. He spoke of the absence of support on the part of the Serbian authorities towards ameliorating the condition of the population; on the contrary, on occasions they intervened to undo his work.88 During his three-month inspection trip as a member of the staff of the American Red Cross Commission to the Balkans, Louis Isaac Jaffé visited Montenegro in late May 1919.89 He visited hospitals and food distribution centers in Cetinje and Podgorica. At the improvised hospital in Nikšić he saw three operations with one lethal outcome. In Nikšić he met numerous bands of armed men whose chests were “festooned with bandoliers of cartridges“ and who were searching for bandits. Jaffé realized that the country was torn in political factions.90

Major James Bruce, the US attaché in Rome, also visited Montenegro in 1919. He was appalled by the prices of food and clothes at the markets. The weekly wages were 25 crowns in Nikšić, and for that amount of money, one could buy 1 kilo of cheese, or 5 kilos of bread, or half a kilo of butter. Major Bruce noted that the prevailing disease was tuberculosis, followed by malaria and syphilis.91 As reported by major William Warfiled, a member of the American Red Cross Commission to the Balkans, almost every other case brought to the attention of the Red Cross doctors was malaria. There were many cases of tuberculosis, which spread everywhere, and the dangerous source turned out to be men who brought it back from Austrian prison camps. The venereal disease was “shockingly common in congenital form among quite young children”, which Warfield explained on account of ignorance and poor medical facilities, and not immorality.92

The Balkan Commission as an organization was terminated on 1 August 1919, but the operations of the various Commissions to Balkan countries continued. Lieutenant Colonel Henry W. Anderson, a Commissioner, accompanied by the high officials of the ARC, Frederick P. Keppel, the Director of Foreign Operations at National Headquarters, Lieut. Col. Robert E. Olds, the Commissioner for Europe, Alice Fitzgerald, the chief nurse of the Commission to Europe, and others, made a survey of the conditions in the Balkans in August 1919, and concluded that relief work should be continued. Although Director Fairclough intended to complete the operation in Montenegro in the summer 1919, officials decided to extend the relief program for at least a year.93 Colonel Fairclough thought that conditions in Montenegro were extremely primitive, but the results of the ARC were most satisfactory. Therefore he suggested to gradually discontinue the relief work and to make an effort to improve living conditions of the population.94

The situation significantly improved in September 1919. The ARC already distributed large quantities of clothing, and considerable quantities of food were secured by the American Relief Administration. Fortunately, people managed to produce food themselves, and the crops were promising the supply of food for the winter. The most urgent need was medical help: physicians, surgeons, drugs, and other medical supplies. The ARC report stated that the medical necessities of Montenegro were tuberculosis relief, medical and engineering means for combating malaria, typhus hospitals, X-ray and other hospital equipment for the proper care of accident and surgical cases, better housing conditions and instruction in public health.95 It was suggested that Montenegro should consider the forming of a public health department with records, epidemiologists, nurses, laboratories, and training schools for nurses.

The first large shipment of about four hundred tons of supplies and motor transportation for the ARC in Montenegro was landed in Dubrovnik in November 1919. About one-third of the total amount of supplies was directed to the Department of medical relief. The rest was distributed to the orphanages in Danilovgrad and Podgorica (about 17%), civilian relief activities (12.1%), child-feeding (9.6%), and general purposes.96 Relying on a report for the ARC Commission in Europe, historian John Treadway wrote that approximately ten percent of all supplies, clothing, and money for the Red Cross activities in the Balkans in 1919 was sent to Montenegro. Six of fifty doctors went to Montenegro, as did a disproportionately large percentage of trucks, ambulances, cars, motorcycles, kitchen trailers, and gasoline.97

In July 1919, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Yugoslavia awarded members of the ARC unit in Montenegro. The Director of the Unit, Henry Rushton Fairclough was given the Order of the White Eagle, Captains Chelsea Pratt and Joseph Jaros received the fifth-class decoration of the same order.98 Minister-Delegate of the Government of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, Pavićević, held a ceremony in Cetinje in front of the governor’s palace, formerly the Russian legation.99 He paid a warm tribute to the work of the American Red Cross, complimented its organization and solution of difficult problems, and expressed gratitude to “the noble American people and the Red Cross members who have labored among us”.100

Conclusion

The ARC Unit for Montenegro was established as a part of the Commission for Balkans, which encountered more or less the same problems in Balkan states. The relief work was a constant fight with the devastating effects of the war on transportation and population in a particular country. In the beginning, the ARC relief workers launched a wide range of relief operations: distributing foodstuffs and clothing, providing medical and dental services, organizing hospitals and dispensaries, maintaining soup kitchens and canteens, teaching nursing, etc. With the completion of that phase, the ARC focused on the establishment of general health and sanitation programs, child welfare, and the prevention of epidemics. In Montenegro and Albania, the ARC faced specific political and social conditions. There were few civilian hospitals and no trained nurses. These areas had high rates of epidemic diseases, so the ARC relief workers had to deal with problems of hygiene and sanitation. The focal idea was the education of the native population, their understanding of diseases, and the prevention. Another aim was to organize hospitals and other relief activities and transfer them to local authorities. In their effort to modernize societies, the ARC assisted in making infrastructure, supporting agriculture and industry, and thus making self-supporting societies.

ЛИСТА РЕФЕРЕНЦИ – LIST OF REFERENCES
Архиви – Archives
National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.
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1915) 1012–1017.
Dock L. L., History of American Red Cross Nursing, New York 1922.
Honor Red Cross Workers, The Evening Star (Washington, 8 August 1919).
Lovejoy E. P., Certain Samaritans, The Macmillan Company, New York 1927.
Montenegro in Sorry Plight, The Red Cross Bulletin (15 September 1919) 6.
Montenegro People in a Pitiable Condition, Los Angeles Times (7 August 1919).
Montenegro’s Dire Want, The New York Times (8 March 1919).
Montenegro’s Gratitude for America, The Red Cross Bulletin (8 December 1919) 7.
Morse E. W., America in the War. The Vanguard of American volunteers, New York 1919.
Murray A., Nineteen Months’ Foreign Relief, American Red Cross Shipments from September 7,
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Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States 1915, Supplement,
Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office, 1928.
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Unsafe in Montenegro Even on Friendly Visit, Mountains Infested with Bandits and Robber
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of Hardy Mountaineers, The New York Times (5 October 1919).
Америчка Мисија, Глас Црногорца 31 (20 јун 1915) [Američka Misija, Glas Crnogorca 31
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Đukanović B., A stay in Montenegro, An American Impression, in: Recounting Cultural
Encounters, ed. by M. Knežević [et al.] Cambridge Scholars, Cambridge 2009, 49–61.
Irwin J. F., Making the World Safe. The American Red Cross and Nation’s Humanitarian
Awakening, Oxford University Press, 2013.
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https://www.portalanalitika.me/clanak/264733—svjedocenja-americki-crveni-krst-u-podgorici-
nakon-velikog-rata-foto.
A. S. Leidholdt, Editor for Justice. The Life of Louis I. Jaffé, Baton Rouge 2006.
More E. S., “A Certain Restless Ambition”: Women Physicians and World War I, American
Quarterly, Vol. 41, No. 4 (Dec., 1989) 636–660; http://www.jstor.org/stable/2713096;
Sredanović B., Arhiv: Američki Crveni krst u Crnoj Gori, 6. 12. 2014. https://www.portalanalitika.
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Živojinović D., America, Italy and the birth of Yugoslavia (1917–1919), New York 1972.
Вучетић Б., Стенли Харт Озборн, амерички лекар у Србији 1915 године, Глас САНУ
CDXXVIII. Одељење историјских наука, књ. 18 (2018) 461–475. [Vučetić B., Stenli Hart
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[Živojinović D., Prilog poznavanju prehrambenih i sanitarnih prilila u Crnoj Gori 1914–1920
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Биљана ВУЧЕТИЋ
ХУМАНИТАРНИ РАД АМЕРИЧКОГ ЦРВЕНОГ КРСТА
У ЦРНОЈ ГОРИ (1915–1919)
Резиме
Рад Америчког црвеног крста у Црној Гори представљао је само део америчке помоћи Европи током и након Великог рата. Амерички црвени крст почео је са организацијом помоћи 1915. године, када су припадници Санитарне комисије зауставили епидемију тифусa у Пећи и Ђаковици. Спровели су санитарне мере и основали тифусне болнице. Црногорска влада је током рата неколико пута тражила од америчке владе и Америчког црвеног крста помоћ у основним потрепштинама и медицинској опреми и финансијску помоћ. У новембру 1918, Стејт департмент дозволио је Америчком црвеном крсту превоз хране и одеће за цивилно становништво Црне Горе. Јединица Црвеног крста стигла је у Котор у јануару

Чланак примљен: 03. 06. 2020.
Чланак коначно прихваћен за објављивање: 16. 07. 2020

  1. године. Припадници те јединице суочили су се с проблемима са храном, одећом и превозом. Хуманитарне активности Америчког црвеног крста одвијале су се у политички нестабилним приликама у региону. Упркос томе, амерички војници и хуманитарци Америчког црвеног крста успели су да избегну учешће у оружаним сукобима између Италије и Краљевине Срба, Хрвата и Словенаца, као и у грађанским сукобима у Црној Гори. До краја 1919, Амерички црвени крст поделио је велике количине одеће и значајне количине хране које је обезбедила Америчка администрација за помоћ. Амерички црвени крст је основао четири болнице – у Подгорици, Цетињу, Колашину и Никшићу, и управљао је диспанзерима, кантинама и народним кухињама у Подгорици, Цетињу, Никшићу и Грахову. Хуманитарци Америчког црвеног крста такође су се бавили едукацијом у области народног здравља и осмишљавали су програме социјалне заштите деце.
  1. The most prolific author was Dragoljub Živojinović, and we have cited some of his works collected in: America, Italy and the Birth of Yugoslavia (1917–1919), New York 1972, Црнa Гора у борби за опстанак 1914–1922, Београд 1996, У потрази за заштитником. Студије о српско-америчким везама 1878–1920, Београд 2010; J. D. Treadway, Anglo-American Diplomacy and the Montenegrin Question, 1914–1921, Occasional Papers 26 (1991) 1–20; The valuable source for the designated period is a collection of documents Montenegro and the USA, in the Documents of the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington D.C., 1905–1918, ed. R. Raspopović, Podgorica 2010 (hereinafter: Montenegro and the USA). ↩︎
  2. The book includes an extensive collection of original photos made by the ARC personnel in Montenegro. N. Čagorović, S. Burzanović, SAD i Crna Gora: Misija američkog Crvenog krsta u Crnoj Gori (1919–1922), Podgorica 2018. ↩︎
  3. B. Đukanović, A Stay in Montenegro, An American Impression, in: Recounting Cultural Encounters, ed. by Marija Knežević [et al.], Cambridge Scholars, Cambridge 2009, 49–61; B. Sredanović, Arhiv: Američki Crveni krst u Crnoj Gori, 6/12/2014. https://www.portalanalitika.me/clanak/169244—arhiv; Ivan Kern, Svjedočenja: Američki Crveni krst u Podgorici nakon Velikog rata, 3/4/2017. https://www.portalanalitika.me/clanak/264733—svjedocenja-americki-crveni-krst-u-podgorici-nakon-velikog-rata-foto; N. Čagorović, S. Burzanović, op. cit., passim. ↩︎
  4. MSS 097, Item 056, Stanley H. Osborn, A Diary of the American Red Cross Sanitary Commission to Serbia 1915–16, Special Collections, University of Delaware Library, Newark, Delaware [hereinafter: Diary]. ↩︎
  5. J. F. Irwin, Making the World Safe. The American Red Cross and Nation’s Humanitarian Awakening, Oxford–New York 2013, 143. ↩︎
  6. Д. Живојиновић, Устанак Малисора 1911. године и америчка помоћ Црној Гори, in: У потрази за заштитником. Студије о српско-америчким везама 1878–1920, Београд 2010, 97–113; S. Burzanović, Crna Gora i SAD (1851–1921), in: N. Čagorović, S. Burzanović, op. cit., 26. ↩︎
  7. J. Treadway, op. cit., passim; Д. Живојиновић, Америчке трупе у Црној Гори 1918–1919.године, Историјски записи 3 (2010) 31–43. ↩︎
  8. The Rockefeller Foundation Annual Report 1915, Special Edition, New York 1915, 325–341. ↩︎
  9. Richard Pearson Strong (1872–1948) is a founder of the Department of Tropical Medicine at Harvard University. During World War I he worked in the European war zone, including France and Serbia during the typhus epidemic. From 1917 to 1919 he was a member of the Inter-Allied Sanitary Commission in Europe. He directed and took part in scientific expeditions in South America and Africa in the 1920s and 1930s ↩︎
  10. Hobart D. Brink was a member of the United States Army Medical Corps, engaged in the Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington. ↩︎
  11. R. P. Strong, Conquering the Typhus Plague, The American Red Cross Magazine, v. 10 (1915) 268 ↩︎
  12. Ibidem, 270. ↩︎
  13. Америчка мисија, Глас Црногорца 31 (20. јун 1915) ↩︎
  14. R. P. Strong, op. cit., 271. ↩︎
  15. Dr. Francis Browne Grinnel (1884–1937), a sanitary inspector, was an assistant in preventive medicine and hygiene at Harvard University. After the war he became the instructor at the Department of Bacteriology and Immunology, Harvard University Medical School. ↩︎
  16. George Cheever Shattuck (1879–1972) specialized in tropical medicine at Harvard University. He accompanied and led expeditions in Africa, Central America, and South America; Dr. Hans Zinsser (1878–1914), a distinguished physician, scientist and author, was a professor of bacteriology at Harvard Medical School. He developed a typhus vaccine. ↩︎
  17. Stanley Hart Osborn (1891–1975), a graduate from the Harvard-MIT School for Health Officers. He was one of the youngest members of a group of doctors and sanitary engineers volunteering with the Red Cross to fight typhus and other epidemic diseases in Serbia and Montenegro, Б. Вучетић, Стенли Харт Озборн, амерички лекар у Србији 1915. године, Глас САНУ CDXXVIII. Одељење историјских наука 18 (2018) 461–475. ↩︎
  18. Dr. Osborn wrote the interpreter’s surname as Mikaelovitch (probably: Mihajlović). His salary was 245 papera (perper), an equivalent of 49 dollars. ↩︎
  19. Diary, 57. ↩︎
  20. Ibidem, 58 ↩︎
  21. Ibidem, 21 June, 62 ↩︎
  22. Ibidem, 61. ↩︎
  23. Upon his return to the USA, Captain Chinn presented to the Kentucky State Historical Society more than two hundred years old “two elegant silver-mounted pistols”, and they were exhibited in the Historical Rooms of the Society, Captain Clement Bell Chinn, Register of the Kentucky State Historical Society, v. 18, No. 52 (1920) 111. ↩︎
  24. Diary, 63. ↩︎
  25. Ibidem, 69–70. ↩︎
  26. Ibidem, 71. ↩︎
  27. Gavrilo Dožić (1881–1950), the future Serbian Patriarch, was the Metropolitan at Peć (1912–1920). ↩︎
  28. Nikolay Mikhailovich Potapov (Потапов Николай Михайлович, 1871–1946) was the Russian military agent in Montenegro from 1903 to 1915. ↩︎
  29. Diary, 87. ↩︎
  30. The first cousin of the King could be voivode Božo Petrović (1846–1929), who was named the governor of Scutari in 1915; R. Strong, op. cit., 124. ↩︎
  31. Dr Osborn mentioned General Božidar Janković, the Chief of Staff of the Montenegrin Supreme Command until June 1915. The Mayor of Peć was Marko Cvetković, Diary, 80 ↩︎
  32. E. W. Morse, America in the War. The Vanguard of American Volunteers, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York 1919, 112 ↩︎
  33. Diary, 61. ↩︎
  34. Ibid, 64. ↩︎
  35. The buying power of the dollar over time is calculated according to the US inflation calculator, which relies on the latest US government CPI data: https://www.usinflationcalculator.com. ↩︎
  36. At the end of May 1915, the Italian naval forces carried out the blockade of the ports on the Adriatic Sea. All ships, including merchant vessels, wishing to enter ports belonging to Italy or Montenegro had to receive a permit from the Italian maritime authorities. Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States 1915, Supplement, Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office, 1928, Page–Lansing, File No. 763.72112/1296, Rome. 7 July 1915, 167. ↩︎
  37. J. Treadway, op. cit., 13. ↩︎
  38. Montenegro and the USA, No. 198, Seferovitch – Taft, Newyork, 12 May 1916, 336–337. ↩︎
  39. Д. Живојиновић, Прилог познавању прехрамбених и санитарних прилика у Црној Гори 1914–1920. године, у: Д. Живојиновић, Црна Гора у борби за опстанак 1914–1922, Београд 1996, 50. ↩︎
  40. Montenegro and the USA, No. 201, Sharp – Lansing, Paris, 25 March 1917, 340. ↩︎
  41. Ibidem, No. 205, Royal Foreign Office of Montenegro – Sharp, Neuilly, 22 May 1917, 346–347 ↩︎
  42. Ibidem, No. 208, Neuilly, 1 June 1917; Д. Живојиновић, Прилог познавању прехрамбених и санитарних прилика, 52–53. ↩︎
  43. Mitrofan Ban (1841–1920), the Metropolitan of Montenegro, was a President of the Montenegrin Red Cross. He stayed in the country during the First World War occupation of the Kingdom by Austria-Hungary; Montenegro and the USA, No. 244, Lansing – American Legation Berne, Washington, 12 August 1918 ↩︎
  44. Besides a sufficient quantity of sanitary supplies and a few auto-trucks for transportation, Gvozdenović asked for 18,000 tons of flour, 2,000 tons of rice, 2,000 tons of bacon, 1,000 tons of fat, 1,000 tons of sugar, 500 tons of coffee, 500 tons of salt, 400 tons of soap, 100,000 cans of coal oil, 100,000 packages of candles, 600 cases of matches, 80,000 men’s garments, 80,000 women’s garments, 80,000 worn military overcoats, 500,000 meters of varied cloths, 1,000,000 shirts, 1,000,000 drawers, 1,000,000 hoses, 80,000 pairs of shoes, 200 tons of leather for wooden shoes, 2,000 gross of black thread spools, 2,000 gross of white thread spools, and 20,000 needles, Montenegro and the USA, No. 254, Three Months Supply of Urgently Needed Commodities by the Population of Montenegro of 500,000 Souls, Montenegro and the USA, No. 254, Gvozdenović – Lansing, 21 October 1918. ↩︎
  45. А. Животић, Уједињење Србије и Црне Горе 1918. Сећање команданта Јадранских трупа генерала Драгутина Милутиновића, Војно-историјски гласник, посебно издање (2019) 313 ↩︎
  46. Montenegro and the USA, No. 261, Philips – American National Red Cross, Washington D.C., 9 November 1918. ↩︎
  47. L. L. Dock, History of American Red Cross Nursing, New York 1922, 1102–1103; N. Čagorović, Amerikanski crveni krst u Crnoj Gori (1919–1922), in: N. Čagorović, S.
    Burzanović, SAD i Crna Gora: Misija američkog Crvenog krsta u Crnoj Gori (1919–1922), Podgorica 2018, 41. ↩︎
  48. Dr Ðuro Vukotić (1856–1923), a politician from Kotor, one of the founders of the Serb People’s Party in the Littoral, and a member of the Dalmatian Parliament until 1909. He was a volunteer in the Montenegrin Army during the First Balkan War. After WWI, he was elected the first President of the Kotor municipality. ↩︎
  49. The ARC reconstructed the Vezirov bridge in Podgorica and the bridge in Smokovac, N. Čagorović, op. cit., 51 ↩︎
  50. National Archives and Records Administration, Records Relating to Civilian War Relief, 1919–1996, Memorandum of Basic Information, Kotor, 20 February 1919. ↩︎
  51. Ibidem ↩︎
  52. Ibidem ↩︎
  53. Henry Rushton Fairclough (1862–1938), was a professor in classics at Stanford University from 1893 to 1927. He also taught at the University of California and Harvard. After WWI he was with the ARC in Switzerland and Montenegro (1919–1920). For his service he was decorated with the Serbian Order of White Eagle and Order of St. Sava, Class III. His experiences in the ARC service are described in the autobiography Warming Both Hands, published after his death, in 1941, Warming Both Hands. The Autobiography of Henry Rushton Fairclough, Including his Experiences under the American Red Cross in Switzerland and Montenegro, Stanford–London 1941; N. Čagorović, op. cit., 53 ↩︎
  54. Annual Report for the Year Ended June 30, 1919, The American National Red Cross, Washington 1919, 140. ↩︎
  55. Annual Report, 1919, 140. ↩︎
  56. Д. Живојиновић, Прилог познавању прехрамбених и санитарних прилика, 53. ↩︎
  57. Montenegro’s Dire Want, The New York Times (8 March 1919) ↩︎
  58. Montenegro People in a Pitiable Condition, Los Angeles Times (7 August 1919). ↩︎
  59. Montenegro’s Relief Story, The Evening Star (Washington, 22 June 1919) ↩︎
  60. Annual Report, 1919, 141. ↩︎
  61. Commission Hailed By Montenegrins, The Red Cross Bulletin (17 March 1919) 5. ↩︎
  62. Annual Report, 1919, 140. ↩︎
  63. Montenegro People in a Pitiable Condition, Los Angeles Times 7 (August 1919). ↩︎
  64. Montenegro in Sorry Plight, The Red Cross Bulletin (15 September 1919) 6 ↩︎
  65. ARC units 2 and 3 arrived in Đevđelija in January 1915. The hospital was placed in the old tobacco factory, without any hospital equipment or even a water and drainage system. Extreme unsanitary conditions and the lack of food and proper housing contributed to the spread of typhus fever and pneumonia among the members of the American Red Cross units and their Austrian and Serbian co-laborers in the hospital, and led to the death of two American doctors, Dr. James Donelly and Dr. Ernest Pendleton Magruder. By the end of February, of initially eighteen persons comprising the American units, only four nurses and two doctors remained on duty. M. Krueger, R. N., Personal Experiences in Servia, The American Journal of Nursing, v. 15 (1914–1915) 1012–1017; B. Vučetić, Warm Neutrality: Some Aspects of American Humanitarian Work in Serbia 1914–1916, in: Al fronte. La Grande Guerrа fra interventismo, cronaca e soccorso, Ed. A. Carteny, G. Motta, A. Vagnini, Collana Storia d’Europa, Sapienza Università di Roma 2018, 111–114. ↩︎
  66. History of American Red Cross Nursing, 1103; B. Đukanović, op. cit., 55; N. Čagorović, op. cit., 64. ↩︎
  67. B. Đukanović, op. cit., 55 ↩︎
  68. Ibidem, 57. ↩︎
  69. Ibidem, 60. ↩︎
  70. History of American Red Cross Nursing, 1103; N. Čagorović, op. cit., 65. ↩︎
  71. History of American Red Cross Nursing, 1104. ↩︎
  72. Ibidem, 1105. ↩︎
  73. Ibidem. ↩︎
  74. Montenegro People in a Pitiable Condition, Los Angeles Times (7 August 1919). ↩︎
  75. “A great many of the people in Montenegro are extremely poor. They live in crude houses of stone and mud. These houses usually contain a single room and are without windows. Timber is so scarce that it has the value almost of precious metal”, Unsafe in Montenegro Even on Friendly Visit, Mountains Infested with Bandits and Robbers – Murders Daily, The Evening Star (Washington, 27 November 1919). ↩︎
  76. History of American Red Cross Nursing, 1106 ↩︎
  77. History of American Red Cross Nursing, 1107; N. Čagorović, op. cit., 65; Nurse Brady was awarded the medal of the first order of the Serbian Red Cross and a ribbon of the Serbian Order of Mercy. She worked in the Cetinje orphanage, but after contracting typhus, she had to return to Illinois, Awarded the Second Decoration by Serbia, The Evening Star (Washington, 29 November 1919). ↩︎
  78. The American Women’s Hospitals (AWH) developed from the War Service Committee of the Medical Women’s National Association (later called the American Medical Women’s Association) in 1917, to register and finance American women physicians and provide care for the civilian population in the war-ravaged areas of Europe. At the end and after the First World War, American women doctors provided significant assistance to France, Serbia, and the Near East in the treatment of acute illnesses (optical, dental, surgical, and emergency treatments) and the organization of health and social care programs (transportation of patients, public health projects, temporary housing, and nurses’ training), Ellen S. More, “A Certain Restless Ambition”: Women Physicians and World War I, American Quarterly, Vol. 41, No. 4 (Dec. 1989) 636–660; http://www.jstor.org/stable/2713096; Б. Вучетић, Осврт на рад Болница америчкиx жена у Србији крајем и након Великог рата, у штампи ↩︎
  79. The Woman’s Medical Journal, v. 29 (1919) 127. ↩︎
  80. Medical Woman’s Journal, v. 27 (1920) 54. ↩︎
  81. E. P. Lovejoy, Certain Samaritans, New York 1927, 40. ↩︎
  82. Dr Keppel States Relief Needs Abroad, The Red Cross Bulletin (20 October 1919) 7. ↩︎
  83. Ibidem, 7. ↩︎
  84. Making Montenegro Healthy, The Red Cross Bulletin, v. 5 (21 March 1921) 8. ↩︎
  85. Treadway, Anglo-American Diplomacy, 14. ↩︎
  86. Appropriations from War Fund for Relief Work in the Balkan States, 1 July 1918 – 30 June 1919, Annual report – The American National Red Cross, American National Red Cross, [Washington], 201. ↩︎
  87. The Commission for Montenegro received funds equal to almost 1.5 million dollars today; the Commission for Greece and the Commission for Serbia received money equal to almost seven million, and almost 14,820.000 dollars today. ↩︎
  88. Д. Живојиновић, Прилог познавању прехрамбених и санитарних прилика, 55; Idem, Мисија Салиса и Мајлса у Црној Гори 1919. године, Историјски записи XXV, 3 (1968) 367–426. ↩︎
  89. Louis Isaac Jaffé (1895–1950), a journalist and editor from Virginia and a Pulitzer Prize winner (1929), during WWI was a second lieutenant in the Army’s Service of Supply. Following the armistice, he was appointed captain in the American Red Cross. In 1919, he participated in the ARC Commission to the Balkans’ three-month inspection trip of Red Cross facilities in Serbia, Montenegro, and Albania. He left descriptions of the war’s devastation of hospitals, clinics and food distribution centers in Monastir, Đevđelija, Vranje, Leskovac, Pirot, Ćuprija, Belgrade, Sarajevo, Cetinje, Podgorica, Nikšić, Kolašin, and Scutari. Jaffé’s War Diary and other papers are kept in the Special Collections of the University of Virginia Library. ↩︎
  90. War Diary, 24 May 1919, Louis I. Jaffe Papers, 1917–1919, Accession #9924-m, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.; A. S. Leidholdt, Editor for Justice. The Life of Louis I. Jaffé, Baton Rouge 2006; N. Čagorović, op. cit., 57. ↩︎
  91. Д. Живојиновић, Прилог познавању прехрамбених и санитарних прилика, 55–56. ↩︎
  92. Major Warfield was a director of the American Red Cross unit to Albania; William Warfield, Chatterboxes of Europe. Montenegrin Women Hold the Record – Home Life of Hardy Mountaineers, The New York Times (5 October 1919). ↩︎
  93. The American Red Cross in Montenegro, Annual Report – The American National Red Cross For the Year Ended June 30, 1920, Washington 1920, 110. ↩︎
  94. The Basilio J. Valdes Digital Collection, Work of the American Red Cross in Europe, Paris, 13 September 1919; http://malacanang.gov.ph/77048-basilio-j-valdes/. ↩︎
  95. Montenegro in Sorry Plight, The Red Cross Bulletin (15 September 1919) 6. ↩︎
  96. Annual Report, 1920, 110 ↩︎
  97. J. Treadway, op. cit., 14 ↩︎
  98. Honor Red Cross Workers, The Evening Star (Washington, 8 August 1919). ↩︎
  99. J. Treadway, op. cit., 14. ↩︎
  100. Montenegro’s Gratitude for America, The Red Cross Bulletin (8 December 1919) 7. ↩︎

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