Fugitive Soldiers on Neutral Territory.
§ 338. A neutral may grant asylum to single soldiers of belligerents who take refuge on his territory, although he need not do so, and may at once send them back to the place they came from. If he grants such asylum, his duty of impartiality obliges him to disarm the fugitives and to take such measures as are necessary to prevent them from rejoining their forces. But it must be emphasised that it is practically impossible for a neutral to be so watchful as to detect every single fugitive who enters his territory. It will always happen that such fugitives steal into neutral territory and leave it again later on to rejoin their forces without the neutral being responsible. And, before he can incur responsibility for not doing so, a neutral must actually be in a position to detain such fugitives. Thus Luxemburg, during the Franco-German War, could not prevent hundreds of French soldiers, who, after the capitulation of Metz, fled into her territory, from rejoining the French forces; because, according to the condition[658] of her neutralisation, she is not allowed to keep an army, and therefore, in contradistinction to Switzerland and Belgium, was unable to mobilise troops for the purpose of fulfilling her duty of impartiality.
[658] See above, [vol. I. § 100].
Neutral Territory and Fugitive Troops.
§ 339. On occasions during war large bodies of troops, or even a whole army, are obliged to cross the neutral frontier for the purpose of escaping captivity. A neutral need not permit this, and may repulse them on the spot, but he may also grant asylum. It is, however, obvious that the presence of such troops on neutral territory is a danger for the other party. The duty of impartiality incumbent upon a neutral obliges him, therefore, to disarm such troops at once, and to guard them so as to insure their not again performing military acts against the enemy during the war. Convention V. enacts the following rules:—
Article 11: "A neutral Power which receives in its territory troops belonging to the belligerent armies shall detain them, if possible, at some distance from the theatre of war. It may keep them in camps, and even confine them in fortresses or localities assigned for the purpose. It shall decide whether officers are to be left at liberty on giving their parole that they will not leave the neutral territory without authorisation."
Article 12: "In the absence of a special Convention, the neutral Power shall supply the interned with the food, clothing, and relief which the dictates of humanity prescribe. At the conclusion of peace, the expenses caused by internment shall be made good."
It is usual for troops who are not actually pursued by the enemy—for if pursued they have no time for it—to enter through their commander into a convention with the representative of the neutral concerned, stipulating the conditions upon which they cross the frontier and give themselves into the custody of the neutral. Such conventions are valid without needing ratification, provided they contain only such stipulations as do not disagree with International Law and as concern only the requirements of the case.
Stress must be laid on the fact that, although the detained troops are not prisoners of war captured by the neutral, they are nevertheless in his custody, and therefore under his disciplinary power, just as prisoners of war are under the disciplinary power of the State which keeps them in captivity. They do not enjoy the exterritoriality—see above, [Vol. I. § 445]—due to armed forces abroad because they are disarmed. As the neutral is required to prevent them from escaping, he must apply stern measures, and he may punish severely every member of the detained force who attempts to frustrate such measures or does not comply with the disciplinary rules regarding order, sanitation, and the like.
The most remarkable instance known in history is the asylum granted by Switzerland during the Franco-German War to a French army of 85,000 men with 10,000 horses which crossed the frontier on February 1, 1871.[659] France had, after the conclusion of the war, to pay about eleven million francs for the maintenance of this army in Switzerland during the rest of the war.