Cartel Ships.
§ 225. Cartel ships[440] are vessels of belligerents which are commissioned for the carriage by sea of exchanged prisoners from the enemy country to their own country, or for the carriage of official communications to and from the enemy. Custom has sanctioned the following rules regarding these cartel ships for the purpose of securing protection for them on the one hand, and, on the other, their exclusive employment as a means for the exchange of prisoners: Cartel ships must not do any trade or carry any cargo or despatches;[441] they are especially not allowed to carry ammunition or instruments of war, except one gun for firing signals. They have to be furnished with a document from an official belonging to the home State of the prisoners and stationed in the country of the enemy declaring that they are commissioned as cartel ships. They are under the protection of both belligerents and may neither be seized nor appropriated. They enjoy this protection not only when actually carrying exchanged prisoners or official communications, but also on their way home after such carriage and on their way to fetch prisoners or official communications.[442] They lose the protection at once, and may consequently be seized and eventually be appropriated, in case they do not comply, either with the general rules regarding cartel ships, or with the special conditions imposed upon them.
[441] The La Rosina (1800), 2 C. Rob. 372; the Venus (1803), 4 C. Rob. 355.
[442] The Daifje (1800), 3 C. Rob. 139; the La Gloire (1804), 5 C. Rob. 192.
V CAPITULATIONS
Grotius, III. c. 22, § 9—Vattel, III. §§ 261-264—Hall, § 194—Lawrence, § 215—Westlake, II. p. 81—Phillimore, III. §§ 122-127—Halleck, II. pp. 319-322—Taylor, §§ 514-516—Wheaton, § 405—Moore, VII. § 1160—Bluntschli, §§ 697-699—Heffter, § 142—Lueder in Holtzendorff, IV. p. 527—Ullmann, § 185—Bonfils, Nos. 1259-1267—Despagnet, No. 562—Pradier-Fodéré, VII. Nos. 2917-2926—Rivier, II. pp. 361-362—Nys, III. pp. 514-517—Calvo, IV. §§ 2450-2452—Fiore, III. Nos. 1495-1497, and Code, Nos. 1733-1740—Martens, II. § 127—Longuet, §§ 151-154—Mérignhac, pp. 225-230—Pillet, pp. 361-364—Bordwell, p. 294—Meurer, II. §§ 41-42—Spaight, pp. 249-259—Kriegsbrauch, pp. 38-41—Holland, War, No. 92—Land Warfare, §§ 301-325.
Character and Purpose of Capitulations.
§ 226. Capitulations are conventions between armed forces of belligerents stipulating the terms of surrender of fortresses and other defended places, or of men-of-war, or of troops. It is, therefore, necessary to distinguish between a simple and a stipulated surrender. If one or more soldiers lay down their arms and surrender, or if a fortress or a man-of-war surrenders without making any terms whatever, there is no capitulation, for capitulation is a convention stipulating the terms of surrender.
Capitulations are military conventions only and exclusively; they must not, therefore, contain arrangements other than those of a local and military character concerning the surrendering forces, places, or ships. If they do contain such arrangements, the latter are not valid, unless they are ratified by the political authorities of both belligerents.[443] The surrender of a certain place or force may, of course, be arranged by some convention containing other than military stipulations, but then such surrender would not originate from a capitulation. And just as is their character, so the purpose of capitulations is merely military—namely, the abandonment of a hopeless struggle and resistance which would only involve useless loss of life on the part of a hopelessly beset force. Therefore, whatever may be the indirect consequences of a certain capitulation, its direct consequences have nothing to do with the war at large, but are local only and concern the surrendering force exclusively.