Francs-tireurs
These proclamations are a denial, pure and simple, of the right of civilians to resist an invader. This right, however, is recognised by the Hague Convention.
In fact, these conventions declare that irregular corps raised to meet an invader are permissible, and that the soldiers who compose them must be treated according to the laws of war, provided that they take care—
(1) “to have at the head of them a person who is responsible for his subordinates;
(2) “to have a distinguishing mark, which is fixed and recognisable at a distance;
(3) “to carry arms openly;
(4) “and to conform in their operations to the laws and customs of war.”
In conclusion the conventions go further, and add—
“The civilians of an unoccupied territory which on the approach of the enemy spontaneously take up arms to combat the invading troops without having had time to organise themselves in conformity with the terms of Article I will be considered as belligerent if they respect the laws and customs of war.”
To this rule of international law Germany had subscribed, both in 1899 and 1907, without any reservation.
Germany, therefore, is acting in violation of conventions which she herself has signed, by treating as rebels the inhabitants of invaded territories who attack her before she has actually occupied the area in which these inhabitants live; she lies when she declares that this method of making war is “contrary to the law of nations,” and she acts like a barbarous tyrant when she announces that every civilian who takes part in the war “will be brought before a court-martial and shot.”
It is superfluous to observe how much more insolent still are the notices issued by the German military authorities, in which the latter ignore not merely the civil population’s right of armed resistance, but also the declaration of the German Government, which affirmed that only the non-combatant who participated in the war would be brought before a court-martial and shot.
The right (which, by the way, is in this case non-existent) of inflicting reprisals on individuals, the right to which the German Government has appealed, has been shamefully transformed by the German military authorities into a right which consists of ill-treating the whole population of a locality in case a civilian may have fired on a German soldier, and of offering this as a justification for the ruin of the locality and the execution of the hostages.
As for the threat uttered by the German commandant, which declared that whoever did not show respect to German officers and did not give them the military salute must expect that German soldiers “would use every means to make themselves respected,” we think it shows the lengths to which German frenzy can go. In itself we may say that it tells us more than all the acts of cruelty. These demands for servile obeisance, uttered under threat of violence and death, have in all times and in all history been the mark of the basest tyrants. Such is the reign of terror which Germany proposed to inflict upon invaded territories by covering it up in fictitious principles which were at variance with all recognised conventions, and which were the expression of nothing but her own caprice.