§ 120. In order that the wounded and sick may receive proper treatment, mobile medical units as well as the fixed establishments of the medical service must be respected and protected by the belligerents, but this protection ceases if these units and establishments are made use of to commit acts harmful to the enemy, for instance, to shelter combatants, to carry on espionage, to conceal arms and ammunition (articles 6 and 7). But article 8 expressly enacts that the units and establishments do not forego protection:—(a) in case the personnel is armed and use their arms for their own defence or for the defence of the wounded and sick under their charge; (b) in case, in default of armed orderlies, units or establishments are guarded by pickets or by sentinels furnished with authority in due form; (c) in case weapons and cartridges, taken from the wounded and not yet handed over to the proper department, are found in units or establishments.

As regards the material, a distinction is drawn between the treatment of the material of mobile medical units, of fixed medical establishments, and of material belonging to Voluntary Aid Societies.

(a) Mobile medical units which fall into the hands of the enemy must not be deprived of their material, including their teams, whatever may be the means of transport and whoever may be the drivers employed (article 14). The competent military authority is, however, permitted to make use of the material in captured medical units for the treatment of the wounded and the sick at hand, provided it is restored under the same conditions, and so far as possible at the same time, as laid down for the release of the medical personnel by article 12.

(b) The buildings and material of fixed medical establishments which, because the locality where they are is militarily occupied, fall into the hands of the enemy, remain, according to article 15, "subject to the laws of war," that means they remain entirely in the power of the captor, but they may not be diverted from their medical purpose so long as they are necessary for the proper treatment of the wounded and the sick. Should, however, urgent military necessity demand it, a commander may dispose of them, provided he makes previous arrangements for the welfare of the wounded and sick found in the fixed establishments.

(c) The material of Voluntary Aid Societies, which are duly recognised, is, according to article 16, considered private property and must, therefore, be respected as such under all circumstances, although it may be requisitioned.

§ 121. The personnel engaged exclusively in the collection, transport, and treatment of the wounded and sick, as well as in the administration of mobile medical units and establishments, the chaplains attached to armies, and, lastly, pickets and sentinels guarding medical units and establishments, must, according to article 9, under all circumstances be respected and protected. If they fall into the hands of the enemy they must not be treated as prisoners of war. According to article 12, however, they are not free to act or move without let or hindrance, for, if their assistance is indispensable, they may be called upon by the captor to carry on their duties to the wounded and the sick. But when their assistance is no longer indispensable, they must be sent back to their army or to their country at such time and by such route as may be compatible with military exigencies, and they must be allowed to take with them such effects, instruments, arms, and horses as are their private property. So long as they are detained by the enemy he must, according to article 13, grant them the same allowances and the same pay as are due to the personnel holding the same rank in his own army.

The personnel of Voluntary Aid Societies employed in the medical units and establishments is, according to article 10, privileged to the same extent as the official personnel, provided that the Voluntary Aid Society concerned is duly recognised and authorised by its Government and that the personnel of the Society is subject to military law and regulations. Each State must notify to the other, either in time of peace or at the commencement, or during the course, of hostilities, but in every case before actually employing them, the names of societies which it has authorised to render assistance to the regular medical service of its armies. A recognised Voluntary Aid Society of a neutral country cannot, according to article 11, afford the assistance of its personnel and units to a belligerent unless it has previously received the consent of its own Government and of the belligerent concerned. And a belligerent who accepts such assistance from a Voluntary Aid Society of a neutral country is bound, before making any use of it, to notify the fact to the enemy.

§ 122. Convoys used for evacuating the wounded and sick must, as regards their personnel and material, be treated in the same way as mobile medical units, but subject to the following special provisions enacted by article 17:—

A belligerent intercepting a convoy may, if military exigencies demand, break it up, provided he takes charge of the sick and wounded who are in it. In this case, the obligation to send back the medical personnel, provided for in article 12, must be extended to the whole of the military personnel detailed for the transport or the protection of the convoy and furnished with an authority in due form to that effect.

The obligation to restore the medical material, provided for in article 14, must apply to railway trains and boats used in internal navigation, which are specially arranged for evacuation, as well as to the material belonging to the medical service for fitting up ordinary vehicles, trains, and boats. Military vehicles, other than those of the medical service, however, may be captured with their teams; and the civilian personnel and the various means of transport obtained by requisition, including railway material and boats used for convoys, are subject to the general rules of International Law concerning war.

§ 123. According to article 18 the Swiss heraldic device of the red cross on a white ground, formed by reversing the federal colours, is adopted as the emblem and distinctive sign of the medical service of armies, but there is no objection to the adoption of another emblem on the part of such non-Christian States as object to the cross on religious grounds. Thus Turkey has substituted a red crescent, and Persia a red sun for the cross.[251] The following are the rules concerning the use of this emblem:—

(1) The emblem must be shown on the flags and the armlets (brassards) as well as on all the material belonging to the medical service, but the emblem cannot be recognised unless it is used with the permission of the competent military authority (article 19).

(2) Medical units and establishments must hoist the red cross flag accompanied by the national flag of the belligerent concerned (article 21), but medical units which have fallen into the hands of the enemy must not, so long as they are in that situation, fly any other flag than that of the red cross. The medical units belonging to neutral countries which have, in accordance with article 11, been admitted to afford their services, must fly, along with the red cross flag, the national flag of the belligerent to whose army they are attached (article 22).

(3) All the personnel must, according to article 20, wear, fixed to the left arm, an armlet (brassard) with a red cross on a white ground, delivered and stamped by the competent military authority and accompanied by a certificate of identity in the case of persons who are attached to the medical service and armies without wearing the military uniform.

(4) The employment of the red cross on a white ground and the words "Red Cross" or "Geneva Cross" must not, according to article 23, be used, either in time of peace or in time of war, except to indicate the protected medical units, establishments, personnel, and material.

§ 124. According to a customary rule of the Law of Nations belligerents have the right to demand from one another that dead soldiers shall not be disgracefully treated, especially not mutilated, and shall be, so far as possible, collected and buried[252] or cremated on the battlefield by the victor. The Geneva Convention does not stipulate any rule concerning the collection and burial or cremation of the dead, but article 3 enacts that after each engagement the commander in possession of the field must take measures to ensure protection of the dead against pillage and maltreatment, and that a careful examination of the bodies, in order to see that life is really extinct, must be made before the dead are buried or cremated. Each belligerent must send as soon as possible to the authorities of the country or army to which they belong the military identification marks or tokens found on the dead (article 4). Pieces of equipment found upon the dead of the enemy are public enemy property and may, therefore, be appropriated as booty[253] by the victor. On the other hand, letters, money, jewellery, and such other articles of value found upon the dead on the battlefield, or on those who die in the medical units or fixed establishments, as are apparently private property, are not booty, but must, according to article 4 of the Geneva Convention and article 14 of the Hague rules concerning warfare on land, be collected and handed over to the Bureau of Information[254] concerning the prisoners of war, which has to transmit them to the persons interested through the channel of the authorities of their own country.

§ 124a. The provisions of the Geneva Convention are only binding in the case of war between two or more of the contracting parties, they cease to be binding from the moment when one of the belligerent Powers is not a party (article 24). The commanders-in-chief of the belligerent armies must, in accordance with the instructions of their Governments and in conformity with the general principles of the Geneva Convention, arrange the details for carrying out the articles of the Geneva Convention, as well as for cases not provided for in these articles (article 25). The contracting parties must take the necessary measures to instruct their troops, especially the personnel protected by the Geneva Convention, in the provisions of the Convention, and to bring these provisions to the notice of the civil population (article 26). In countries whose legislation is not at the time of the signing of the Convention adequate for the purpose, the contracting parties must adopt such measures as may be necessary to prevent, at all times, the employment of the emblem or the name of "Red Cross" or "Geneva Cross" by private individuals or by Societies other than those which are entitled to do so according to the Geneva Convention, and in particular for commercial purposes as a trade mark or trading mark (article 27). The contracting Governments must likewise adopt measures necessary for the repression in time of war of individual acts of pillage and maltreatment of the wounded and sick, as well as for the punishment of the improper use of the Red Cross flag and armlet (brassard) by officers and soldiers or private individuals not protected by the Geneva Convention. They must, at the latest within five years from the ratification of the Geneva Convention, communicate to one another through the Swiss Federal Council, the provisions concerning these measures of repression (article 28).[255]

§ 124b. The Geneva Convention comes into force for each contracting Power six months after the date of the deposit of its ratification (article 30). The new Geneva Convention replaces the old of 1864, but the old Geneva Convention remains in force between such of its contracting parties as do not become parties to the new Convention of 1906 (article 31). Such of the Powers as signed the old Convention of 1864, but did not sign the new Convention of December 31, 1906, are free to accede to it at any time later by means of a written notification to the Swiss Federal Council. Other Powers may likewise notify their accession at any time to the Swiss Federal Council, but their accession only takes effect in case, within a period of one year from such notification, no objection to the accession reaches the Swiss Federal Council from any of the previous contracting Powers (article 32). Each of the contracting Powers is at liberty at any time to denounce the Geneva Convention by a written notification to the Swiss Federal Council, which must immediately indicate it to all the other contracting Powers (article 33). The denunciation, however, does not take effect until one year after it has come to the notice of the Swiss Federal Council, and a denunciation only affects such Power as has notified it.

IV CAPTIVITY

Grotius, III. c. 14—Bynkershoek, Quaest. jur. publ. I. c. 3—Vattel, III. §§ 148-154—Hall, §§ 131-134—Westlake, II. pp. 63-68—Lawrence, § 164—Maine, pp. 160-167—Manning, pp. 210-222—Phillimore, III. § 95—Twiss, II. § 177—Halleck, II. pp. 19-30—Taylor, §§ 519-524—Moore, VII. §§ 1127-1133—Wharton, III. §§ 348-348D—Wheaton, § 344—Bluntschli, §§ 593-626—Heffter, §§ 127-129—Lueder in Holtzendorff, IV. pp. 423-445—Ullmann, § 177—Bonfils, Nos. 1119-1140—Despagnet, Nos. 544-550—Pradier-Fodéré, VII. Nos. 2796-2842, and VIII. No. 3208—Rivier, II. pp. 273-279—Nys, III. pp. 537-553—Calvo, IV. §§ 2133-2157—Fiore, III. Nos. 1355-1362, and Code, Nos. 1567-1588—Martens, II. § 113—Longuet, §§ 77-83—Mérignhac, pp. 87-113—Pillet, pp. 145-164—Kriegsbrauch, pp. 11-18—Zorn, pp. 73-123—Bordwell, pp. 237-248—Land Warfare, §§ 54-116—Spaight, pp. 260-320—Holland, War, Nos. 24-40—Eichelmann, Über die Kriegsgefangenschaft (1878)—Romberg, Des belligérants et des prisonniers de guerre (1894)—Triepel, Die neuesten Fortschritte auf dem Gebiet des Kriegsrechts (1894), pp. 41-55—Holls, The Peace Conference at the Hague (1900), pp. 145-151—Cros, Condition et traitement des prisonniers de guerre (1900)—Beinhauer, Die Kriegsgefangenschaft (1910)—Payrat, Le prisonnier de guerre dans la guerre continentale (1910).

§ 125. During antiquity, prisoners of war could be killed, and they were very often at once actually butchered or offered as sacrifices to the gods. If they were spared, they were as a rule made slaves and only exceptionally liberated. But belligerents also exchanged their prisoners or liberated them for ransom. During the first part of the Middle Ages prisoners of war could likewise be killed or made slaves. Under the influence of Christianity, however, their fate in time became mitigated. Although they were often most cruelly treated during the second part of the Middle Ages, they were not as a rule killed and, with the disappearance of slavery in Europe, they were no longer enslaved. By the time modern International Law gradually came into existence, killing and enslaving prisoners of war had disappeared, but they were still often treated as criminals and as objects of personal revenge. They were not considered in the power of the State by whose forces they were captured, but in the power of those very forces or of the individual soldiers that had made the capture. And it was considered lawful on the part of captors to make as much profit as possible out of their prisoners by way of ransom, provided no exchange of prisoners took place. So general was this practice that a more or less definite scale of ransom became usual. Thus, Grotius (III. c. 14, § 9) mentions that in his time the ransom of a private was the amount of his one month's pay. And since the pecuniary value of a prisoner as regards ransom rose in proportion with his fortune and his position in life and in the enemy army, it became usual for prisoners of rank and note not to belong to the capturing forces but to the Sovereign, who had, however, to recompense the captors. During the seventeenth century, the custom that prisoners were considered in the power of their captors died away. They were now considered to be in the power of the Sovereign by whose forces they were captured. But rules of the Law of Nations regarding their proper treatment were hardly in existence. The practice of liberating prisoners in exchange, or for ransom only, continued. Special cartels were often concluded at the outbreak of or during a war for the purpose of stipulating a scale of ransom according to which either belligerent could redeem his soldiers and officers from captivity. The last[256] instance of such cartels is that between England and France in 1780, stipulating the ransom for members of the naval and military forces of both belligerents.

It was not until the eighteenth century, with its general tendencies to mitigate the cruel practices of warfare, that matters changed for the better. The conviction in time became general that captivity should only be the means of preventing prisoners from returning to their corps and taking up arms again, and should, as a matter of principle, be distinguished from imprisonment as a punishment for crimes. The Treaty of Friendship[257] concluded in 1785 between Prussia and the United States of America was probably the first to stipulate (article 24) the proper treatment of prisoners of war, prohibiting confinement in convict prisons and the use of irons, and insisting upon their confinement in a healthy place, where they may have exercise, and where they may be kept and fed as troops. During the nineteenth century the principle that prisoners of war should be treated by their captor in a manner analogous to that meted out to his own troops became generally recognised, and the Hague Regulations have now, by articles 4 to 20, enacted exhaustive rules regarding captivity.

§ 126. According to articles 4-7 and 16-19 of the Hague Regulations prisoners of war are not in the power of the individuals or corps who capture them, but in the power of the Government of the captor. They must be humanely treated. All their personal belongings remain their property, with the exception of arms, horses, and military papers, which are booty;[258] and in practice[259] personal belongings are understood to include military uniform, clothing, and kit required for personal use, although technically they are Government property. They may only be imprisoned as an unavoidable matter of safety, and only while the circumstances which necessitate the measure continue to exist. They may, therefore, be detained in a town, fortress, camp, or any other locality, and they may be bound not to go beyond a certain fixed boundary. But they may not be kept in convict prisons. Except in the case of officers, their labour may be utilised by the Government according to their rank and aptitude, but their tasks must not be excessive and must have nothing to do with military operations. Work done by them for the State must be paid for in accordance with tariffs in force for soldiers of the national army employed on similar tasks, or, in case there are no such tariffs in force, at rates proportional to the work executed. But prisoners of war may also be authorised to work for other branches of the public service or for private persons under conditions of employment to be settled by the military authorities, and they may likewise be authorised to work on their own account. All wages they receive go towards improving their position, and a balance must be paid to them at the time of their release, after deducting the cost of their maintenance. But whether they earn wages or not, the Government is bound under all circumstances to maintain them, and provide quarters, food, and clothing for them on the same footing as for its own troops. Officer prisoners must receive the same pay as officers of corresponding rank in the country where they are detained, the amount to be repaid by their Government after the conclusion of peace. All prisoners of war must enjoy every latitude in the exercise of their religion, including attendance at their own church service, provided only they comply with the regulations for order issued by the military authorities. If a prisoner wants to make a will, it must be received by the authorities or drawn up on the same conditions as for soldiers of the national army. And the same rules are valid regarding death certificates and the burial of prisoners of war, and due regard must be paid to their grade and rank. Letters, money orders, valuables, and postal parcels destined for or despatched by prisoners of war must enjoy free postage, and gifts and relief in kind for prisoners of war must be admitted free from all custom and other duties as well as payments for carriage by Government railways (article 16).

§ 127. Every individual who is deprived of his liberty not for a crime but for military reasons has a claim to be treated as a prisoner of war. Article 13 of the Hague Regulations expressly enacts that non-combatant[260] members of armed forces, such as newspaper correspondents, reporters, sutlers, contractors, who are captured and detained, may claim to be treated as prisoners of war, provided they can produce a certificate from the military authorities of the army they were accompanying. But although the Hague Regulations do not contain anything regarding the treatment of private enemy individuals and enemy officials whom a belligerent thinks it necessary[261] to make prisoners of war, it is evident that they may claim all privileges of such prisoners. Such individuals are not convicts; they are taken into captivity for military reasons, and they are therefore prisoners of war.

§ 128. Articles 8 and 9 of the Hague Regulations lay down the discipline to be observed in the case of prisoners of war in the following way:—Every prisoner who, if questioned, does not declare his true name and rank is liable to a curtailment of the advantages accorded to prisoners of his class. All prisoners are subject to the laws, regulations, and orders in force in the army of the belligerent that keeps them in captivity. Any act of insubordination on the part of prisoners may be punished in accordance with these laws,[262] but apart from these laws, all kinds of severe measures are admissible to prevent a repetition of such acts. Escaped prisoners, who, after having rejoined their national army, are again taken prisoners, are not liable to any punishment for their flight. But if they are recaptured before they succeed in rejoining their army, or before they have quitted the territory occupied by the capturing forces, they are liable to disciplinary punishment.

§ 129. Articles 10 to 12 of the Hague Regulations deal with release on parole in the following manner:—No belligerent is obliged to assent to a prisoner's request to be released on parole, and no prisoner may be forced to accept such release. But if the laws of his country authorise him to do so, and if he acquiesces, any prisoner may be released on parole. In such case he is in honour bound scrupulously to fulfil the engagement he has contracted, both as regards his own Government and the Government that released him. And his own Government is formally bound neither to request, nor to accept, from him any service incompatible with the parole given. Any prisoner released on parole and recaptured bearing arms against the belligerent who released him, or against such belligerent's allies, forfeits the privilege to be treated as a prisoner of war, and may be tried by court-martial. The Hague Regulations do not lay down the punishment for such breach of parole, but according to a customary rule of International Law the punishment may be capital.

§ 130. According to articles 14 and 16 of the Hague Regulations every belligerent[263] must institute on the commencement of war a Bureau of Information relative to his prisoners of war. This Bureau is intended to answer all inquiries about prisoners. It must be furnished by all the services concerned with all the necessary information to enable it to make out and keep up to date a separate return for each prisoner, and it must, therefore, be kept informed of internments and changes as well as of admissions into hospital, of deaths, releases on parole, exchanges, and escapes. It must state in its return for each prisoner the regimental number, surname and name, age, place of origin, rank, unit, wounds, date and place of capture, of internment, of the wounds received, date of death, and any observations of a special character. This separate return must, after conclusion of peace, be sent to the Government of the other belligerent.

The Bureau must likewise receive and collect all objects of personal use, valuables, letters, and the like, found on battlefields[264] or left by prisoners who have been released on parole, or exchanged, or who have escaped, or died in hospital or ambulances, and must transmit these articles to those interested. The Bureau must enjoy the privilege of free postage.

§ 131. A new and valuable rule, taken from the Brussels Declaration, is that of article 15 of the Hague Regulations making it a duty of every belligerent to grant facilities to Relief Societies to serve as intermediaries for charity to prisoners of war. The condition of the admission of such societies and their agents is that the former are regularly constituted in accordance with the law of their country. Delegates of such societies may be admitted to the places of internment for the distribution of relief, as also to the halting-places of repatriated prisoners, through a personal permit of the military authorities, provided they give an engagement in writing that they will comply with all regulations by the authorities for order and police.

§ 132. Captivity can come to an end through different modes. Apart from release on parole, which has already been mentioned, captivity comes to an end—(1) through simple release without parole; (2) through successful flight; (3) through liberation by the invading enemy to whose army the respective prisoners belong; (4) through exchange for prisoners taken by the enemy; (5) through prisoners[265] being brought into neutral territory by captors who take refuge there; and, lastly (6), through the war coming to an end. Release of prisoners for ransom is no longer practised, except in the case of the crew of a captured merchantman released on a ransom bill.[266] It ought, however, to be observed that the practice of ransoming prisoners might be revived if convenient, provided the ransom is to be paid not to the individual captor but to the belligerent whose forces made the capture.

As regards the end of captivity through the war coming to an end, a distinction must be made according to the different modes of ending war. If the war ends by peace being concluded, captivity comes to an end at once[267] with the conclusion of peace, and, as article 20 of the Hague Regulations expressly enacts, the repatriation of prisoners must be effected as speedily as possible. If, however, the war ends through conquest and annexation of the vanquished State, captivity comes to an end as soon as peace is established. It ought to end with annexation, and it will in most cases do so. But as guerilla war may well go on after conquest and annexation, and thus prevent a condition of peace from being established, although real warfare is over, it is necessary not to confound annexation with peace.[268] The point is of interest regarding such prisoners only as are subjects of neutral States. For other prisoners become through annexation subjects of the State that keeps them in captivity, and such State is, therefore, as far as International Law is concerned, unrestricted in taking any measure it likes with regard to them. It can repatriate them, and it will in most cases do so. But if it thinks that they might endanger its hold over the conquered territory, it might likewise prevent their repatriation for any definite or indefinite period.[269]

V APPROPRIATION AND UTILISATION OF PUBLIC ENEMY PROPERTY

Grotius, III. c. 5—Vattel, III. §§ 73, 160-164—Hall, §§ 136-138—Westlake, II. pp. 102-107—Lawrence, § 171—Maine, pp. 192-206—Manning, pp. 179-183—Twiss, II. §§ 62-71—Halleck, II. pp. 58-68—Moore, VII. § 1148—Taylor, §§ 529-536—Wharton, III. § 340—Wheaton, §§ 346, 352-354—Bluntschli, §§ 644-651A—Heffter, §§ 130-136—Lueder in Holtzendorff, IV. pp. 488-500—G. F. Martens, II. §§ 279-280—Ullmann, § 183—Bonfils, Nos. 1176-1193—Despagnet, Nos. 592-596—Pradier-Fodéré, VII. Nos. 2989-3018—Rivier, II. pp. 306-314—Nys, III. pp. 296-308—Calvo, IV. §§ 2199-2214—Fiore, III. Nos. 1389, 1392, 1393, 1470, and Code, Nos. 1557-1560—Martens, II. § 120—Longuet, § 96—Mérignhac, pp. 299-316—Pillet, pp. 319-340—Kriegsbrauch, pp. 57-60—Holland, War, No. 113—Land Warfare, §§ 426-432—Meurer, II. §§ 65-69—Spaight, pp. 410-418—Zorn, pp. 243-270—Rouard de Card, La guerre continentale et la propriété (1877)—Bluntschli, Das Beuterecht im Krieg, und das Seebeuterecht insbesondere (1878)—Depambour, Des effets de l'occupation en temps de guerre sur la propriété et la jouissance des biens publics et particuliers (1900)—Wehberg, Das Beuterecht im Land und Seekrieg (1909; an English translation appeared in 1911 under the title Capture in War on Land and Sea)—Latifi, Effects of War on Property (1909).

§ 133. Under a former rule of International Law belligerents could appropriate all public and private[270] enemy property they found on enemy territory. This rule is now obsolete. Its place is taken by several rules, since distinctions are to be made between moveable and immoveable property, public and private property, and, further, between different kinds of private and public property. These rules must be discussed seriatim.

§ 134. Appropriation of public immoveables is not lawful so long as the territory on which they are has not become State property of the occupant through annexation. During mere military occupation of the enemy territory, a belligerent may not sell or otherwise alienate public enemy land and buildings, but only appropriate the produce of them. Article 55 of the Hague Regulations expressly enacts that a belligerent occupying enemy territory shall only be regarded as administrator and usufructuary of the public buildings, real property, forests, and agricultural works belonging to the hostile State and situated on the occupied territory; that he must protect the stock and plant, and that he must administer them according to the rules of usufruct. He may, therefore, sell the crop from public land, cut timber in the public forests and sell it, may let public land and buildings for the time of his occupation, and the like. He is, however, only usufructuary, and he is, therefore, prohibited from exercising his right in a wasteful or negligent way that would decrease the value of the stock and plant. Thus, for instance, he must not cut down a whole forest unless the necessities of war compel him.

§ 135. It must, however, be observed that the produce of such public immoveables only as belong to the State itself may be appropriated, but not the produce of those belonging to municipalities or of those which, although they belong to the hostile State, are permanently set aside for religious purposes, for the maintenance of charitable and educational institutions, and for the benefit of art and science. Article 56 of the Hague Regulations expressly enacts that such property is to be treated as private property.

§ 136. So far as the necessities of war demand, a belligerent may make use of public enemy buildings for all kinds of purposes. Troops must be housed, horses stabled, the sick and wounded nursed. Public buildings may in the first instance, therefore, be made use of for such purposes, although they may thereby be considerably damaged. And it matters not whether the buildings belong to the enemy State or to municipalities, whether they are regularly destined for ordinary governmental and municipal purposes, or for religious, educational, scientific, and the like purposes. Thus, churches may be converted into hospitals, schools into barracks, buildings used for scientific research into stables. But it must be observed that such utilisation of public buildings as damages them is justified only if it is necessary. A belligerent who turned a picture gallery into stables without being compelled thereto would certainly commit a violation of the Law of Nations.