that quarter should be granted, and was obliged to consent to the exception of Pomeranians on his own side and Croats. on the side of his foes. In the English Civil War between King and Parliament, quarter was refused by the latter to the Irish, though in other respects the struggle was carried on in a more humane manner than was usual in those times. The practice of sparing the life of a foe who asked for mercy became thoroughly established in subsequent wars, and was so completely incorporated in the code of military honor that when in 1794 the French Convention decreed that English soldiers were not to be admitted to quarter, its troops ignored the order and took prisoners on the pretext that they were deserters. According to modern rules quarter can be refused only in retaliation for some enormity committed by the enemy; but even under such circumstances it is better to grant it, and to find some less cruel way of punishing the offender. § 187. The next point is concerned with the treatment of those who have given themselves up and received quarter. We may briefly summarize the best practice with regard to them in the words, Prisoners of war are cared for and exchanged. It was the custom of early times to kill them, and sometimes to eat them also. Even now there are tribes in existence who first torture and then feast The treatment of upon captured enemies. Slavery was regarded prisoners of war. as a mitigation of their lot; and was justified by Roman Law on the ground that it was a merciful relaxation of the strict rules of warfare which gave the victor a right to the life of his captives. The reduction of prisoners to slavery was practised long after the custom of slaughtering them had been abandoned. In comparatively modern 1 Justinian, Institutes, I., iii., 3. times we find them, not indeed sold into domestic servitude, but kept in a species of state slavery. As late as the seventeenth century the Spaniards sent their prisoners to the galleys, and purchased Algerine captives from the Dutch, who did not employ slaves themselves, but seem to have had no objection to selling into slavery those whom they captured in war. The custom of enslaving prisoners of war died out in Europe early in the eighteenth century, except as regards Turkey and the Barbary States more or less dependent upon her. As the Porte came more and more into the society of the Western powers it conformed to their usages; but hostile operations, such as the bombardment of Algiers by Lord Exmouth in 1816, were necessary before the Barbary pirates could be taught to respect the rules of civilized warfare. Grotius declares that Christians ought to be content with ransom and refrain from reducing one another to slavery.2 The custom of allowing prisoners of war to ransom themselves seems to have become general in the Middle Ages. Captives were held to belong to their captors, who made bargains with them for payments of money in consideration of release. The common soldiers, who could not raise the funds wherewith to redeem themselves, were vilely treated and occasionally slain. Sometimes prisoners whose ransoms had been fixed were given away as presents, or transferred in payment of a debt like bank-notes or bills of exchange. In the fourteenth century the practice arose of fixing a price by the payment of which the king could buy prisoners of rank from their captors. The next step was to establish a fixed tariff for the ransom of prisoners of all kinds; and in the seventeenth century international agreements for ransom according to an established scale came into vogue, the money being paid by the state. About the same time we find exchange, which had been mentioned with approval by Grotius, 3 becoming common as an alternative to 1 Manning, Law of Nations, IV., viii. 8 Ibid., III., XIV., 1x. 1 ransom, and sometimes the two are joined together in one agreement. This was the case in the stipulations agreed to between England and France in 1780, which are said to be the last which recognize ransom. They valued a marshal of France, or an English admiral at sixty men. Officers of lower grades were assessed in proportion, and the equivalent of a man in English money was a pound sterling. Thus a marshal or an admiral could be exchanged for sixty men or ransomed for sixty pounds.1 Exchange has been the rule in modern times and ransom has become obsolete. The most recent usage of all is that of releasing prisoners of war on parole, that is to say on receiving from them their word of honor not to serve again during the existing war against their captor or his allies. Generally none but officers are released on such terms, but sometimes whole armies or the entire garrisons of besieged places have been allowed to depart after giving the required promise. Occasionally a prisoner purchases liberty of movement within certain wide limits by promising not to attempt to escape. Breach of parole is punishable with death, if the individual guilty of it falls again into the power of his captors during the same war. According to modern International Law the right to detain prisoners ceases when the war ceases; and each side must then send its captives home. But up to the Peace of Westphalia of 1648 it was necessary to make special stipulations for such release without ransom; and in default of any arrangement of the kind the prisoners were detained in a captivity which, as we have just seen, amounted to a form of slavery. Prisoners of war are to be treated with humanity. The restraints needful for their safe custody may be placed upon their movements; but their confinement ought not to be made more rigid than the necessity of the case demands. They must be fed and clothed by their captors, whose duty it is to put them in these respects upon a level with their 1 Manning, Law of Nations, IV., viii. own troops. They may be employed in useful work as long as it has no relation to the war, and is not excessive or derogatory to their rank or social position. The military authorities of the captor's country may allow them to undertake private work. The pay they receive for their services should be given to them on their release; but the cost of their maintenance may be deducted from it. Up to the end of the last century belligerents were expected to maintain their own soldiers and sailors who were prisoners in the custody of an enemy; but the modern practice is embodied in Article 27 of the code drawn up at the Brussels Conference of 1874, the opening words of which run, “The government in whose power are the prisoners of war undertakes to provide for their maintenance." 1 It is often said that combatants only may be made prisoners of war; but exceptions to this rule are allowed in the case of those non-combatants who from their position and circumstances give direct aid to the enemy in his hostilities. Thus merchant sailors may be captured as being possible recruits for the fighting navy, and military police, telegraphists, balloonists and contractors, if present in the field of warlike operations. To these the Brussels Conference, adopting the provisions of Article 50 of the American Instructions, added correspondents and newspaper reporters, 2 but probably the worst that would happen to them if captured in civilized warfare would be expulsion from the lines of the captors. Members of the enemy's royal family, his chief Ministers of State and his diplomatic agents are liable to capture, even though they may not be actually engaged in hostile operations. Their position makes them so important to the enemy in the conduct of his war that they cannot be treated as ordinary non-combatants. Military writers sometimes assert that a commander may destroy his prisoners if he finds himself placed in such a position that it is extremely dangerous either to keep or re 1 British State Papers, Miscellaneous, No. 1 (1875), p. 322. 2 Ibid. lease them. It is difficult to say that under no imaginable circumstances would it be justifiable to kill prisoners; but we may at least lay down with confidence that the necessity must be very dire before so foul an outrage on humanity can stand excused. In 1799 Napoleon ordered the destruction of four thousand prisoners who had formed part of the garrison of Jaffa. To feed them was impossible, as his own troops were almost starving. He could not spare a detachment to escort them back to Egypt; and if he had dismissed them on parole they would at once have joined the enemy, for their religion absolved them from keeping faith with an infidel. In this terrible conjunction of circumstances the French commander and his officers discussed the fate of the prisoners for two days, and at last decided to order them to be shot, though they had surrendered on condition that their lives should be spared.1 There can be little doubt that mercy would have been the better policy. The massacre inspired the garrison of Acre with such desperate courage that the French failed in all their assaults on the place, and were obliged to abandon their dream of Eastern conquest and retreat across the desert to Egypt. § 188. The care of those who are injured in battle or on the march is one of those matters in which modern warfare shows to great advantage as compared with its ancient prototype. In these days Provision is made for tending the sick and wounded; whereas we hear little of wounded in the battles of antiquity, and the usual lot of enemies left helpless on the field was to be first plundered and then The care of the killed. Any of the victor's wounded who sick and wounded. could struggle off the scene of conflict might possibly be 1 Alison, History of Europe, III., xxv. |