A code for the government of armies in the field as authorized by the laws and usages of war on land : printed as manuscript for the Board appointed by the Secretary of War [Special Orders, no. 399] "to propose amendments or changes in the rules and articles of war, and a code of regulations for the government of armies in the field, as authorized by the laws and usages of war" / by Francis Lieber.
- Lieber, Francis, 1800-1872.
- Date:
- [1863]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A code for the government of armies in the field as authorized by the laws and usages of war on land : printed as manuscript for the Board appointed by the Secretary of War [Special Orders, no. 399] "to propose amendments or changes in the rules and articles of war, and a code of regulations for the government of armies in the field, as authorized by the laws and usages of war" / by Francis Lieber. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)
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![defence against wrong; and no conventional restriction of the modes adopted to injure the enemy is any longer ad- mitted; but the law of war imposes many limitations and restrictions on principles of justice, faith, and honor. § 7. Military Necessity admits of all direct destruction of life or limb of the armed enemies, and of those whose de- struction is incidentally unavoidable in the armed contests of the war; it allows of the capturing of every armed ene- my, and every enemy of importance to the hostile govern- ment, or of peculiar danger to the captor ; it allows of all destruction and obstruction of property, of the ways and channels of traffic, travel, or communion, and of all with- holding of sustenance or means of life from the enemy ; of all appropriation necessary for the subsistence and safety of the army, and of all deception which does not involve the breaking of good faith either positively pledged regarding agreements entered into during the war, or supposed by the modern law of war to exist, even in the fiercest struggle, as a basis of intercourse between honorable belligerents. Men who taken]* arm-, against one another in public war, do not cease on this account to be moral beings, responsible to one another, and to God. Military Necessity does not admit of cruelty—that is, the infliction of suffering for the sake of suffering or for re- venge ;—nor of maiming or wounding except in fight, nor of torture to extort confessions ; it does not admit of the use of poison in any way, nor of the devastation of districts for the sake of creating depopulated districts, since it is the will of our Maker that in the normal state the land shall be tilled and peopled : and, in general, Military Necessity does not include any act of hostility which makes the return to peace unnecessarily difficult. § S. In modern wars all civil and penal law continues to take its usual course in the enemy's places and territories under Martial Law, unless interrupted or stopped by order of the occupying military power ; but all the functions of the hostile government, legislative, executive, or administra- tive, whether of a general, provincial, or local character,](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21136695_0003.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
