THE GENEVA CONVENTION OF 1906

The members of the congress of Vienna who, for the most part, directed the international politics of Europe for the first half of the nineteenth century, have never been accounted as exponents of liberal thought, or as the advocates of liberal policies. But it must be said in behalf of their narrow and, at times, reactionary statesmanship, that it kept the peace in western Europe during the period intervening between the battle of Waterloo, which terminated the military and political activity of the first Napoleon, and the appearance of his nephew in the rôle of a military commander in the Italian campaign of 1859. For the first time in recorded history it was given to the harassed inhabitants of the Rhine provinces to see a full half century of peace, and to enjoy so much as fifty years of fortunate and uninterrupted immunity from the hardships and sacrifices of war.

The operations in the Crimea, which abounded in inefficiency and mismanagement, had been carried on in a distant and inaccessible region, but the theater of the campaign of 1859 was in northern Italy, an area so accessible from all parts of western Europe that it instantly filled with curious observers, who desired to see at first hand something of the actual operations of war. They were not disappointed. The casualties were not excessive, but the spectacle of the bloodshed and desolation of war was new and unfamiliar. The fields of Magenta and Solferino were strewn with dead and wounded; the diseases incident to the movements and operations of large armies abounded; the surgical and hospital staffs were inadequate in point of numbers and equipment, and were otherwise badly supplied and obviously unequal to the task of caring for the enormous numbers of sick and wounded who were thrown into their hands for medical and surgical treatment. Anesthetics had not yet found a place in the official medical supply tables; antiseptics and antiseptic surgery were still to be invented and perfected; and the charitably disposed found abundant opportunity to assist the medical and hospital staffs in relieving the sick and caring for the wounded.

Two philanthropic citizens of Switzerland-Gustave Moynier and Henri Dunant, both men of high executive ability and widely experienced in relief work, were among the first to arrive in the field, and instantly addressed themselves to the task of organizing and coördinating the well disposed but unskilled activities of those who were willing to assist in caring for the sick and wounded; and it was out of the experience gained by these two philanthropic workers that the first Geneva conference came into being.

The Geneva conference of 1864 thus marks, in a sense, the revival or renewal of military activity on a large scale, to which the people of western Europe and the new countries beyond the sea had not been accustomed since the first Napoleon had been eliminated as a factor in European politics. It was also the direct outgrowth of the short but sanguinary war, waged in behalf of Italian unity which, in the language of the French emperor, was to free Italy from the Alps to the Adriatic. But the object lessons in human suffering were not alone sufficient to fix public attention upon the need of concerted action, for to these were added four years of agitation and awakening of public opinion before the matter was taken up by the federal council of Switzerland and the call for an international conference was accepted by the powers.

It is an error to suppose that the work of the first Geneva conference was in any sense a discovery. The convention of 1864 may be said to have fairly represented the best existing practice among continental armies in respect to the management and control of the sick and wounded, and in the immunities which were habitually accorded to the personnel of the medical and sanitary services who were charged with their care and treatment. That convention embodied, in the form of an international agreement, the practice which had theretofore rested upon customs and usage, and derived its obligatory force from the implied consent of the states which accepted and applied them in the conduct of their military operations. To accomplish this, the framers of the old convention attempted to apply the principle of neutrality to the sick and wounded, and to the personnel and matériel of the sanitary establishments which habitually accompanied the operations of armies in the field.

In the march of improvements in medicine and surgery, the interval which separates the Italian campaign of 1859 and the Manchurian

operations of 1904 is vastly greater than that which separates the medical service of the great Frederick from that of the third Napoleon. The Geneva conference of 1906 recognized that anesthetics, antiseptic surgery, sterilization, the hospital ship and the hospital train, were essential incidents in the modern treatment of wounds and in the prevention of camp diseases. The framers of the old convention adapted their work to existing needs; they knew that the wounded soldier was not a neutral, and in applying the term to the sick and wounded in time of war they were attempting to describe the immunity to which they were entitled, and the consideration which they desired should be shown to the victims of wounds and disease.

In the new convention much of the inexactness of expression which characterized the old undertaking has been eliminated. Descriptive words and phrases have been brought into close and exact relation with the conditions of modern science and the operations of modern war. The terms "neutral" and "neutrality," as applied to the immunity granted to those charged with the care and treatment of the sick and wounded by the convention of 1864, have been replaced by words and clauses which define their status with the greatest accuracy. The term "neutral" is used throughout the new convention in the sense attributed to it in statutes and treaties and in the works of text writers of standard authority, and is restricted, as will presently appear, to cases of internment and to the personnel of volunteer aid societies, organized under the authority of neutral states, which tender their services to a belligerent in time of war.

The terms used to describe the status of the sick and wounded and the personnel and matériel of the sanitary establishments in which they are entertained and cared for have a clear and unmistakable meaning; and are calculated to conduce to efficiency and certainty of execution; indeed, it is difficult to see how they can give occasion for variance in interpretation.

Throughout the treaty the term sanitary formation is applied to all establishments, whether fixed or movable, which are provided by public appropriation or private charity for the treatment of the sick and wounded in time of war. To each of the movable sanitary formations a surgical and administrative personnel is attached; tents, bedding, ambulances and other means of transportation are provided, together with a sufficient equipment of surgical instruments and medi

cal and hospital supplies. To the personnel and matériel, constituting such a movable sanitary formation, the quality of inviolability is attached by the terms of the convention, and, in the event of its falling into the hands of the enemy, the entire establishment, when its sick and wounded have been evacuated or transferred to base hospitals, is required to be returned to the lines of its own army, with the least practicable delay.

The commanding general of the belligerent forces into whose hands such an establishment falls is charged with the performance of this duty, but is permitted to exercise a reasonable discretion in respect to the time when, and the method and route by which the restoration shall be accomplished. While it remains in the hands of the enemy its administrative personnel continue in receipt of the pay and allowances which are assigned to their respective grades in the service of the belligerent in whose hands they are; upon their return to their own lines, they are permitted to take with them their private property, including horses, personal baggage, and such arms as are habitually carried by them in active service. A similar immunity is granted the official personnel of a movable sanitary formation which has been placed at the service of a belligerent by a volunteer aid society.

When a belligerent finds it necessary to furnish a guard for the police protection of a hospital or other sanitary establishment, the individuals composing it, in the event of its capture, are returned to the lines of their own army, with the personnel and matériel of the sanitary formation, without becoming prisoners of war.

What has been said in respect to the personnel of the movable sanitary formation applies with equal force to the medical staff employed in the buildings, hospitals, and other fixed establishments which pass into the occupation of the enemy as a consequence of his military operations. If the matériel in possession of such establishments is the property of the belligerent state, such property, including the buildings in which it is installed, becomes subject to the laws of war, and, as such, is liable to capture, but with the express condition that it must not be diverted from the use to which it has been assigned or appropriated so long as it is necessary for the treatment and accommodation of the sick and wounded. If the matériel furnished by volunteer associations, which enjoy the benefits and privileges of the convention, is found in such fixed hospitals, upon their occupation by

the enemy, the convention provides that it shall be regarded as private property and, as such, shall be subject to the right of requisition as recognized by the laws and usages of war.

The new convention contains a stipulation that the protection accorded to the personnel of all sanitary formations is forfeited if acts of hostility are committed, save in individual self-defense or in the protection of the sick and wounded in its charge. It was for this reason that the clause recognizing their right to carry arms was inserted in the convention. The mere fact that arms, cartridges, or other articles constituting the war equipment of troops in active service are found in the possession of individuals, or in the storerooms of fixed or movable hospitals, does not confer a hostile character upon such establishments nor deprive the individuals in whose possession they are found of the benefits conferred by the convention.

The privileges conferred upon volunteer aid societies by the terms of the convention are not only extremely liberal, but are in harmony with the most advanced humanitarian views in respect to the treatment of the sick and wounded in time of war. To enable such an association to take part in relief work in the theater of active military operations, it is necessary that it should receive the formal recognition of its own government; the fact of such official recognition being communicated by that government to other states, either in time of peace or prior to its being employed in the theater of active operations. While employed in the field the personnel of such societies becomes subject to the control and supervision of the belligerent in whose service its aid is rendered.

If a volunteer aid society, established and authorized by a neutral state, desires to render aid to either belligerent, it can do so by first obtaining the consent of its own government and the authorization of the belligerent whom it desires to serve. The belligerent accepting the services of a neutral aid society is required to notify the enemy that such authorization has been accorded.

The details of organization of these societies, together with the preparation of regulation governing their activity in the field and fixing their relations with the sanitary department of the army, were wisely left to the discretion of the individual powers. It is proper to observe, however, that the furnishing of relief by such associations to communities suffering in time of peace from pestilence or famine, or from the