[2]. The Romans considered that no war could be just unless it was preceded by a formal declaration.
Vice-Admiral Rodney M. Lloyd pointed out in a recent letter to the Times that while in naval warfare all stratagems were admitted, expected, and provided against, in military operations, on the contrary, some acts of a similar kind appeared to be objected to. The Boers, for instance, frequently disguised themselves in British khaki uniforms, and endeavoured to delude sentries and guards.
Some writers refer to this as “the abuse of the khaki uniform” and “the treacherous use of the khaki uniform,” but if such things are permitted in naval operations it is difficult to see why they should be considered immoral if practised on land.
Apropos it may be mentioned that during some Russian naval manœuvres the admiral’s ship was destroyed by the following trick. A party of volunteers from other squadrons came alongside the cruiser Africa, the flagship, in a Finnish coasting smack, and one of the volunteers, dressed as a peasant, came on board with a telegram. Whilst the attention of the Africa’s crew was diverted the other volunteers fastened a small buoy with the inscription, “Frigate Prince Pojarsky,” under the stern of the flagship.
BENEATH THE WAVES.
Of course there is a very thin line which separates what is considered fair and what is considered unfair warfare among civilised communities. Lord Dunsany said that he was not perfectly sure that there could not be something said in favour of poisoning wells. “We have heard something about poisoning the air. The French some time ago had what they called bullets asphyxiants. These would have utterly poisoned a whole ship’s crew. If these missiles may be used, then it comes to this: that it is lawful to poison the air, but not lawful to poison the water.”
Lyddite shells seem rather to resemble these bullets asphyxiants, for their stench is reported to be terribly stupefying to those in the immediate neighbourhood when they burst. But whereas explosive shells fired from guns are considered “legitimate,” shells fired from rifles are regarded as “illegitimate.”
Respecting the question of poisoning wells, Colonel Lonsdale Hale has remarked that so long as this was done openly, and the fact notified in some way to those who would use them, there seemed to be nothing more to be said against this forbidden practice than against the permitted practice of depriving the enemy of good water supply by filling in wells and by cutting off the good water, as the Germans did at Metz and Paris, and reducing their enemy’s water supply to the sewage-receiving Moselle and Seine. If it was permissible to starve one’s enemy by denying him solid food, it seemed to him equally permissible to starve him by denying him liquid food.
Wolff and Bynkerhoeck, two of the originators of international law, thought the use of poison in warfare perfectly legitimate. Vattel considered the practice interdicted by the law of nature which did not allow of the multiplying the evils of war beyond all bounds. To get the better of the enemy he must be struck, and if once disabled, what necessity, he asked, was there that he should eventually die of wounds.