ABSTRACT
The wider relief effort included the Red Cross Association, the Charity Sisters, as well as the Red Crescent Society or, as it was sometimes known, The Imperial Ottoman Society for the Relief of Wounded. During the Russo-Turkish War a British Relief Committee, or ‘English Committee’, was in existence and met at the Imperial Ottoman Bank. In early 1878, a further body had emerged at Constantinople, the International Refuge Fund. In seeking to explain the relief efforts undertaken among those displaced by the 1877 war, Rebecca Gill suggests that the agencies involved were chiefly motivated by suspicion of Russia’s strategic intentions. In connection with the 1877 war, the imperative of stopping Russia in its tracks was very clear. Many committee members had personally fought Russia during the Crimean War. For many there was a clear patriotic duty to continue the fight by whatever means were to hand.
