FOREWORD.

THE object of this little Handbook is to present to the British Officer, in a form more attractive than that in which it has hitherto been offered to him, a statement of the Laws and Usages of War. The necessity for providing military students with instruction in this department is proved by the experience of the FrancoGerman War and of those which have since occurred: and the Hague Convention of 1899 has facilitated the process by supplying for the first time a considerable body of Rules, armed practically with International authority. But such a student finds himself still confronted with some difficulties. Of all forms of literature, that in which a Statute clothes itself is probably the most repulsive. The Hague rules have of necessity taken this form; and notwithstanding the valuable notes in which one of the most distinguished English jurists, Professor T. E. Holland, of Oxford, has

explained and supplemented these rules, the form still remains most uninviting.

Under these circumstances, it has occurred to the writer that if the rules, instead of being presented in detached sections, were stated in simpler language and in a more continuous form, and further, if they were preceded by a short historical sketch of the Usages of War, showing how the present position had been brought into existence, the military student might more readily be induced to enter upon the study of a most interesting subject. It is with this view that this Manual has been compiled; but the texts of the Geneva and the Hague Conventions are given in the Appendix, in order that reference may be made when necessary to the ipsissima verba of those documents.

A. G. L.

BULFORD, July, 1906.

P.S.-On the 6th of July, 1906, when this Manual was already in type, the Revised Convention of Geneva was signed in that city by the delegates to whom the

task of its revision had been entrusted. This document has not yet received the official sanction of the several Powers, and therefore no official copy or authorized translation is as yet forthcoming. But the text, as signed by the delegates, was published in several French journals; and I have printed in Appendix D an extract from the "Journal de Genève" of the 7th of July, which purports to give this text.

A. G. L.

THE

LAWS AND USAGES OF WAR ON LAND.

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.

In order to understand the meaning of International Law-an expression first used by Jeremy Bentham in his "Principles of Morals and Legislation "—it is necessary to start with a definition. International Law may, for practical purposes, be defined as "The system of rules, based partly upon agreement and partly upon custom, which regulate the mutual relations of States"; and a State may be defined as an "Independent Political Community." A considerable difference of opinion has always existed among jurists as to the real foundation upon which this system rests, arising mainly from the circumstance that it lacks the essential characteristic of law, as that word is generally understood, viz., a supreme arbiter between the parties, and consequently a definite sanction or penalty to be suffered by the party who may be found to be in the wrong. For these reasons many writers have maintained that International Law is not law at all. It is true that there is not, and never has been, a

B