State Personalty is at the mercy of the victor.
Movable State property on the other hand can, according to modern views, be unconditionally appropriated by the conqueror.
This includes public funds,[98] arms, and munition stores, magazines, transport, material supplies useful for the war and the like. Since the possession of things of this kind is of the highest importance for the conduct of the war, the conqueror is justified in destroying and annihilating them if he is not able to keep them.
On the other hand an exception is made as to all objects which serve the purposes of religious worship, education, the sciences and arts, charities and nursing. Protection must therefore be extended to: the property of churches and schools, of libraries and museums, of almshouses and hospitals. The usual practise of the Napoleonic campaigns[99] so ruthlessly resorted to of carrying off art treasures, antiquities, and whole collections, in order to incorporate them in one’s own art galleries, is no longer allowed by the law of nations to-day.[100]
Private realty.
Immovable private property may well be the object of military operations and military policy, but cannot be appropriated as booty, nor expended for fiscal or private purposes of acquisition. This also includes, of course, the private property of the ruling family, in so far as it really possesses this character and is not Crown Lands, whose fruits are expended as a kind of Civil List or serve to supplement the same.
Private personalty.
Movable private property, finally, which in earlier times was the undeniable booty of the conqueror, is to-day regarded as inviolable. The carrying off of money, watches, rings, trinkets, or other objects of value, is therefore to be regarded as criminal robbery and to be punished accordingly.
The appropriation of private property is regarded as partially permissible in the case of those objects which the conquered combatant carries on his own person. Still here also, opinions against the practise make it clear that the taking away of objects of value, money, and such-like is not permissible, and only those required for the equipment of troops are declared capable of appropriation.
The recognition of the inviolability of private property does not of course exclude the sequestration of such objects as can, although they are private property, at the same time be regarded as of use in war. This includes, for example, warehouses of supplies, stores of arms in factories, depots of conveyances or other means of traffic, as bicycles, motor cars, and the like, or other articles likely to be of use with advantage to the army, as telescopes, etc. In order to assure to the possessors compensation from their government, equity enjoins that a receipt be given for the sequestration.