Plaquette, Aux Dames de la Croix Rouge, struck bronze, by Henri Allouard, French, 20th century, 1916.

Obv., a nurse guides a soldier who has been blinded and wounded in the arm and leans on a stick. Decorated above with fronds of ivy -symbol of fidelity and attachment -and the shield of the Red Cross, and below with branches of oak and laurel. Panel blank for engraving. Rev., a female personification of Victory, crowned with laurels and holding the martyr's palm frond and an olive branch, hovers over the prone figure of a dead Red Cross nurse, probably intended to represents Edith Cavell. The nurse lies on a bed of flowers and palms, and besides her head is a revolver. In the background a city in flames, and on the horizon the rising sun. The top corners decorated with more shields and ivy. The edge has the incuse cornucopia of Paris Mint mark and BRONZE.

This bronze plaquette was made by Henri Allouard in France, 1916. This plaquette commemorates the nurses of the Red Cross. The soldier on this plaquette is probably intended to portray a man blinded by gas. After 1916 mustard gas attacks were more or less constant on the Western Front. Exposure was often fatal, following a slow agonising descent through burns to skin and external organs to respiratory failure. Those who survived were frequently left blind, and with permanent breathing difficulties.

A.88-1920