[104] The King of Denmark in 1715, whilst Charles XII, after the Battle of Pultawa, stayed for years in Bender, sold the conquered principalities of Bremen and Verden to the King of England, Elector of Hanover, before England had yet declared war on Sweden. This undoubtedly unlawful act of England first received formal recognition in the Peace of Stockholm, 1720.
[105] The German administration desired that, as hitherto, justice should be administered in the name of the Emperor (Napoleon III). The Court, on the contrary, desired, after the revolution of September 4th, 1870, to use the formula: “In the name of the French Republic.” The Court no longer recognized the Emperor as Sovereign, the German authorities did not yet recognize the Republic. Finally the Court, unfortunately for the inhabitants, ceased its activities. The proper solution would have been, according to Bluntschli (547), either the use of a neutral formula, as, for example, “In the name of the law,” or the complete omission of the superfluous formula.
[106] Stein, Revue 17, Declaration of Brussels, Article 6.
[107] Manuel 51; Moynier, Revue, XIX, 165.
[108] Article 42 of the Hague Regulations runs: “Territory is considered to be occupied when it is placed as a matter of fact under the authority of the hostile army. The occupation extends only to territories where that authority is established and capable of being exercised.”
[109] The passage of French troops through Prussian territory in October, 1805, was a contempt of Prussian neutrality.—The moment the Swiss Government permitted the Allies to march through its territory in the year 1814, it thereby renounced the rights of a neutral State.—In the Franco-Prussian War the Prussian Government complained of the behavior of Luxemburg in not stopping a passage en masse of fugitive French soldiers after the fall of Metz through the territory of the Grand Duchy.
[110] The considerable reenforcement of the Servian Army in the year 1876 by Russian Freelances was an open violation of neutrality, the more so as the Government gave the officers permission, as the Emperor himself confessed later to the English Ambassador in Livadia. The English Foreign Enlistment Act of 1870, Art. 4,[A] forbids all English subjects during a war in which England remains neutral, to enter the army or the navy of a belligerent State, or the enlistment for the purpose, without the express permission of the Government. Similarly the American law of 1818. The United States complained energetically during the Crimean War of English recruiting on their territory.
[A] [This Act applies to British subjects wherever they may be, and it also applies to aliens, but only if they enlisted or promoted enlistment on British territory. For a full discussion of the scope of the Act see R. v. Jameson (1896), 2 Q.B. 425.—J. H. M.]
[111] At the end of August, 1870, some French detachments, without its being known, marched through Belgian territory; others in large numbers fled after the Battle at Sedan to Belgium, and were there disarmed. In February, 1871, the hard-pressed French Army of the East crossed into Switzerland and were there likewise disarmed.
[112] In the negotiations in 1793, as to the neutrality of North America in the Anglo-French War, Jefferson declared: “The right of the citizens to fashion, sell, and export arms cannot be suspended by a foreign war, but American citizens pursue it on their own account and at their own risk.”—Bluntschli, sec. 425 (2). Similarly in the famous treaty between Prussia and the United States of September 10th, 1785, it was expressly fixed in Article 13 that if one of the two States was involved in war and the other State should remain neutral, the traders of the latter should not be prevented from selling arms and munitions to the enemy of the other. Thus the contraband articles were not to be confiscated, but the merchants were to be paid the value of their goods by the belligerent who had seized them. This arrangement was, however, not inserted in the newer treaties between Prussia and the Union in 1799 and 1828.