D. THE GENEVA CONVENTION FOR THE AMELIORATION OF THE CONDITION OF THE SICK AND WOUNDED OF ARMIES IN THE FIELD. Art. I.-Ambulances and military hospitals shall be acknowledged to be neuter, and, as such, shall be protected and respected by belligerents so long as any sick or wounded may be therein. Such neutrality shall cease if the ambulances or hospitals should be held by a military force. Art. II. Persons employed in hospitals and ambulances, comprising the staff for superintendence, medical service, administration, transport of wounded, as well as chaplains, shall participate in the benefit of neutrality, while so employed, and so long as there remain any wounded to bring in or to succor. Art. III. The persons designated in the preceding article may, even after occupation by the enemy, continue to fulfill their duties. in the hospital or ambulance which they serve, or may withdraw in order to rejoin the corps to which they belong. Under such circumstances, when these persons shall cease from their functions, they shall be delivered by the occupying army to the outposts of the enemy. Art. IV. As the equipment of military hospitals remains subject to the laws of war, persons attached to such hospitals cannot, in withdrawing, carry away any articles but such as are their private property. Under the same circumstances an ambulance shall, on the contrary, retain its equipment. Art. V. Inhabitants of the country who may bring help to the wounded shall be respected, and shall remain free. The generals of the belligerent powers shall make it their care to inform the inhabitants of the appeal addressed to their humanity, and the neutrality which will be the consequence of it. Any wounded man entertained and taken care of in a house shall be considered a protection thereto. Any inhabitant who shall have entertained wounded men in his house shall be exempted from the quartering of troops, as well as from a part of the contributions of war which may be imposed. Art. VI.-Wounded or sick soldiers shall be entertained and taken care of, to whatever nation they may belong. Commanders-in-chief shall have the power to deliver immediately, to the outposts of the enemy, soldiers who have been wounded in an engagement, when circumstances permit this to be done, and with the consent of both parties. Those who are recognized, after their wounds are healed, as incapable of serving, shall be sent back to their own country. The others may also be sent back, on condition of not bearing arms during the continuance of the war. Evacuations, together with the persons under whose direction they shall take place, shall be protected by an absolute neutrality. Art. VII.-A distinctive and uniform flag shall be adopted for hesiptals, ambulances, and evacuations. It must on every occasion be accompanied by the national flag. An arm badge (brassard) shall also be allowed for individuals neutralized, but the delivery thereof shall be left to military authority. The flag and arm badge shall bear a red cross on a white ground. Art. VIII. The details of execution of the present convention shall be regulated by the commanders-in-chief of belligerent armies, according to the instructions of their respective governments, and in conformity with the general principles laid down in this convention. Art. IX. The high contracting powers have agreed to communicate the present convention to those governments which have not found it convenient to send plenipotentiaries to the International Convention at Geneva, with an invitation to accede thereto; the protocol is for that purpose left open. Art. X. The present convention shall be ratified, and the ratifications exchanged at Berne, in four months, or sooner if possible.1 E. INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE GOVERNMENT OF ARMIES OF THE UNITED STATES IN THE Field. GENERAL ORDERS, WAR DEPARTMENT, No. 100. ADJUTANT-GENERAL'S OFFICE, The following "Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field," prepared by FRANCIS LIEBER, LL. D., and revised by a Board of Officers, of which Major-General E. A. HITCHCOCK is president, having been approved by the President of 1 The text of the Geneva Convention and of the two preceding Declarations, is taken from the Appendix of Davis' International Law. the United States, he commands that they be published for the information of all concerned. By order oF THE SECRETARY OF WAR: E. D. TOWNSEND, Assistant Adjutant-General. · SECTION I. MARTIAL LAW-MILITARY JURISDICTION-MILITARY NECESSITY RETALIATION. 1. A place, district, or country occupied by an enemy stands, in consequence of the occupation, under the Martial Law of the invading or occupying army, whether any proclamation declaring Martial Law, or any public warning to the inhabitants, has been issued or not. Martial Law is the immediate and direct effect and consequence of occupation or conquest. The presence of a hostile army proclaims its Martial Law. 2. Martial Law does not cease during the hostile occupation, except by special proclamation, ordered by the commander-in-chief; or by special mention in the treaty of peace concluding the war, when the occupation of a place or territory continues beyond the conclusion of peace as one of the conditions of the same. 3. Martial Law in a hostile country consists in the suspension, by the occupying military authority, of the criminal and civil law, and of the domestic administration and government in the occupied place or territory, and in the substitution of military rule and force for the same, as well as in the dictation of general laws, as far as military necessity requires this suspension, substitution, or dictation. The commander of the forces may proclaim that the administration of all civil and penal law shall continue, either wholly or in part, as in times of peace, unless otherwise ordered by the military authority. 4. Martial Law is simply military authority exercised in accordance with the laws and usages of war. Military oppression is not Martial Law; it is the abuse of the power which that law confers. As Martial Law is executed by military force, it is incumbent upon those who administer it to be strictly guided by the principles of justice, honor, and humanity-virtues adorning a soldier even more than other men, for the very reason that he possesses the power of his arms against the unarmed. 5. Martial Law should be less stringent in places and countries fully occupied and fairly conquered. Much greater severity may be exercised in places or regions where actual hostilities exist, or are expected and must be prepared for. Its most complete sway is allowed-even in the commander's own country-when face to face with the enemy, because of the absolute necessities of the case, and of the paramount duty to defend the country against invasion. To save the country is paramount to all other considerations. 6. All civil and penal law shall continue to take its usual course in the enemy's places and territories under Martial Law, unless interrupted or stopped by order of the occupying military power; but all the functions of the hostile government-legislative, executive, or administrative-whether of a general, provincial, or local character, cease under Martial Law, or continue only with the sanction, or if deemed necessary, the participation of the occupier or invader. 7. Martial Law extends to property, and to persons, whether they are subjects of the enemy or aliens to that government. 8. Consuls, among American and European nations, are not diplomatic agents. Nevertheless, their offices and persons will be subjected to Martial Law in cases of urgent necessity only: their property and business are not exempted. Any delinquency they commit against the established military rule may be punished as in the case of any other inhabitant, and such punishment furnishes no reasonable ground for international complaint. 9. The functions of Ambassadors, Ministers, or other diplomatic agents, accredited by neutral powers to the hostile government, cease, so far as regards the displaced government; but the conquering or occupying power usually recognizes them as temporarily accredited to itself. 10. Martial Law affects chiefly the police and collection of public revenue and taxes, whether imposed by the expelled government or by the invader, and refers mainly to the support and efficiency of the army, its safety, and the safety of its operations. 11. The law of war does not only disclaim all cruelty and bad faith concerning engagements concluded with the enemy during the war, but also the breaking of stipulations solemnly contracted by the belligerents in time of peace, and avowedly intended to remain in force in case of war between the contracting powers. It disclaims all extortions and other transactions for individual gain; all acts of private revenge, or connivance at such acts. Offences to the contrary shall be severely punished, and especially so if committed by officers. 12. Whenever feasible, Martial Law is carried out in cases of in dividual offenders by Military Courts; but sentences of death shall be executed only with the approval of the chief executive, provided the urgency of the case does not require a speedier execution, and then only with the approval of the chief commander. 13. Military jurisdiction is of two kinds: first, that which is conferred and defined by statute; second, that which is derived from the common law of war. Military offences under the statute law must be tried in the manner therein directed; but military offences which do not come within the statute must be tried and punished under the common law of war. The character of the courts which exercise these jurisdictions depends upon the local laws of each particular country. In the armies of the United States the first is exercised by courtsmartial; while cases which do not come within the "Rules and Articles of War," or the jurisdiction conferred by statute on courtsmartial, are tried by military commissions. 11. Military necessity, as understood by modern civilized nations, consists in the necessity of those measures which are indispensable for securing the ends of the war, and which are lawful according to the modern law and usages of war. 15. Military necessity admits of all direct destruction of life or limb of armed enemies, and of other persons whose destruction is incidentally unavoidable in the armed contests of the war; it allows of the capturing of every armed enemy, and every enemy of importance to the hostile government, or of peculiar danger to the captor; it allows of all destruction of property, and obstruction of the ways and channels of traffic, travel, or communication, and of all withholding of sustenance or means of life from the enemy; of the appropriation of whatever an enemy's country affords necessary for the subsistence and safety of the army, and of such deception as does not involve the breaking of good faith either positively pledged, regarding agreements entered into during the war, or supposed by the modern law of war to exist. Men who take up arms against one another in public war do not cease on this account to be moral beings, responsible to one another, and to God. 16. Military necessity does not admit of cruelty, that is, the infliction of suffering for the sake of suffering or for revenge, nor of maiming or wounding except in fight, nor of torture to extort confessions. It does not admit of the use of poison in any way, nor of the wanton devastation of a district. It admits of deception, but disclaims acts of perfidy; and, in general, military necessity does not include any act of hostility which makes the return to peace unnecessarily difficult. |