The readiness with which wars are waged, and the destruction of property held legitimate in warfare, are other instances of the little regard felt for the proprietary rights of foreigners. Grotius maintained that “such ravage is tolerable as in a short time reduces the enemy to seek peace”;[239] and in the practice of his time devastation was constantly used independently of any immediate military advantage accruing from it.[240] In the eighteenth century the alliance of devastation with strategical objects became more close, but it was still regarded as an independent means of attack by Wolff,[241] Vattel,[242] and others;[243] and even at the beginning of the nineteenth century instances of devastation of a not necessary kind occasionally occurred.[244] In later days opinion has decisively laid down that the measure of permissible devastation is to be found in the strict necessities of war.[245] Yet there is an exception to this rule: during the siege of a fortified town custom still permits the houses of the town itself to be bombarded, with a view to inducing the commandant to surrender on account of the misery suffered by the inhabitants.[246] Under the old customs of war a belligerent possessed a right to seize and appropriate all property belonging to a hostile state or its subjects, of whatever kind it might be and in any place where acts of war were permissible.[247] Subsequently this extreme right has been tempered by usage, and in a few directions it has disappeared.[248] Thus the principle proclaimed, but not always acted on, by the Revolutionary Government of France, that private property should be respected on a hostile as on a friendly soil,[249] is favoured by present opinion and usage,[250] and pillage by the soldiers of an invading army is expressly forbidden.[251] At the same time there is unfortunately no doubt that in all wars pillage does continue with impunity;[252] and we sometimes hear of a captured town being sacked, and the houses of the inhabitants being plundered, on the plea that it was impossible for the general to restrain his soldiers.[253] Moreover, private property taken from the enemy on the field of battle, in the operations of a siege, or in the storming of a place which refuses to capitulate, is usually regarded as legitimate spoils of war.[254] Military contributions and requisitions are levied upon the inhabitants of the hostile territory.[255] And whilst the progress of civilisation has slowly tended to soften the extreme severity of the operations of war by land, it still remains unrelaxed in respect to maritime warfare, the private property of the enemy taken at sea or afloat in port being indiscriminately liable to capture and confiscation. In justification of this it is said that the object of maritime wars is the destruction of the enemy’s commerce and navigation, and that this object can only be attained by the seizure of private property.[256]
[239] Grotius, De jure belli et pacis, iii. 12. 1. 3.
[240] Hall, Treatise on International Law, p. 533.
[241] Wolff, Jus Gentium, §823, p. 300.
[242] Vattel, Le droit des gens, iii. 9. 167, vol. ii. 76 sq.
[243] Hall, op. cit. p. 533 sq.
[244] Ibid. p. 534 sq.
[245] Ibid. p. 535. Bluntschli, Le droit international, §663, p. 385. Heffter, Das europäische Völkerrecht, §125, p. 262. Wheaton, Elements of International Law, p. 473. Conférence de Bruxelles, art. 13, g. Conférence internationale de la paix, La Haye 1899, ‘Règlement concernant les lois et coutumes de la guerre sur terre,’ art. 23 g, pt. i. 245.
[246] Hall, op. cit. p. 536 sq.
[247] Grotius, op. cit. iii. 6. 2. Hall, op. cit. pp. 417, 438.