Convoys of Evacuation.
§ 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.
Distinctive Emblem.
§ 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.