VI SUPPLIES AND LOANS TO BELLIGERENTS
Vattel, III. § 110—Hall, §§ 216-217—Lawrence, § 235—Westlake, II. pp. 217-219—Phillimore, III. § 151—Twiss, II. § 227—Halleck, II. p. 163—Taylor, §§ 622-625—Walker, § 67—Wharton, III. §§ 390-391—Moore, VII. §§ 1307-1312—Bluntschli, §§ 765-768—Heffter, § 148—Geffcken in Holtzendorff, IV. pp. 687-700—Ullmann, §§ 191-192—Bonfils, Nos. 1471-1474—Despagnet, Nos. 693-694—Rivier, II. pp. 385-411—Calvo, IV. §§ 2624-2630—Fiore, III. Nos. 1559-1563—Martens, II. § 134—Kleen, I. §§ 66-69, 96-97—Mérignhac, pp. 360-364—Pillet, pp. 289-293—Dupuis, Nos. 317-319—Land Warfare, §§ 477-480.
Supply on the part of Neutrals.
§ 349. The duty of impartiality must prevent a neutral from supplying belligerents with arms, ammunition, vessels, and military provisions.[685] And it matters not whether such supply takes place for money or gratuitously. A neutral who sold arms and ammunition to a belligerent at a profit would violate his duty of impartiality as also would one who transferred such arms and ammunition to a belligerent as a present. This is a settled rule so far as direct transactions regarding such supply between belligerents and neutrals are concerned. The case is different where a neutral does not directly and knowingly deal with a belligerent, although he may, or ought to, be aware that he is indirectly supplying a belligerent. Different States have during neutrality taken up different attitudes regarding such cases. Thus in 1825, during the War of Independence which the Spanish South American Colonies waged against their mother country, the Swedish Government sold three old men-of-war, the Försigtigheten, Euridice, and Camille to two merchants, who on their part sold them to English merchants, representatives of the Government of the Mexican insurgents. When Spain complained, Sweden rescinded the contract.[686] Further, the British Government in 1863, during the American Civil War, after selling an old gunboat, the Victor, to a private purchaser and subsequently finding that the agents of the Confederate States had obtained possession of her, gave the order that during the war no more Government ships should be sold.[687] On the other hand, the Government of the United States of America, in pursuance of an Act passed by Congress in 1868 for the sale of arms which the end of the Civil War had rendered superfluous, sold in 1870, notwithstanding the Franco-German War, thousands of arms and other war material which were shipped to France.[688] This attitude of the United States is now generally condemned, and article 6 of Convention XIII. may be quoted against a repetition of such a practice on the part of a neutral State. This article prohibits the supply in any manner, directly or indirectly, by a neutral to a belligerent, of warships, ammunition, or war material of any kind whatever.
[685] See article 6 of Convention XIII.
[686] See Martens, Causes Célèbres, V. pp. 229-254.
[687] See Lawrence, § 235.
[688] See Wharton, III. § 391, and Moore, VII. § 1309.
Supply on the part of Subjects of Neutrals.