Protecting Humanity after World War I: Successes and Failures
Overview
The First International War Crimes Trials: Leipzig 1921
The first international war crimes trials, the Leipzig Trials, held in 1921, established an example of how not to conduct a trial against alleged war criminals. Throughout the spring and summer of 1921, Germans charged as war criminals, for their actions in the First World War, were tried and sentenced by Germans in the country’s highest court: the Criminal Senate of the Imperial Court of Justice at Leipzig. Shock at the apparently “light” sentences of the war criminals provoked an outraged response throughout Great Britain, Belgium, and France, who presented charges against Germany. Their expressed resentment for the trials spread across Europe and the United States. The outcome of the trials and their flaws emerged from German partiality and concern for national interest. However, the vying agendas amongst the Allies, the complete lack of guidance for the trials under international law, and the instability of the fragile Weimar Republic allowed for the peculiar structure and conduct of the trials.
Learning Objectives
- Analyze the immediate and long-term goals of the Leipzig Trials.
- Analyzes the successes and failures of the Leipzig Trials.
Key Terms / Key Concepts
Imperial Court of Justice at Leipzig: Germany’s highest court in 1921
Leipzig Trials: held in Germany in 1921, the first international war crimes trials
Preparing for the First International War Crimes Trials
After WWI, the Allies had called for war crimes trials against the Germans since 1914. However, creating an agreed-upon course of action for the trials caused incessant conflict between the Allies because neither the phrase “war crimes” nor “war criminals” appeared in the 1907 Hague Convention, which governed international law during the First World War. The British first employed the phrases in conjunction with the German occupation and exploitation of neutral Belgium in 1914.
As the war progressed, the focus of British clamor for war trials shifted away from German actions in Belgium to German “atrocities” of mistreatment toward British prisoners of war and unrestricted submarine warfare. These two concerns dominated British charges during postwar discussion of war crimes trials. The French expressed similar charges against German mistreatment of French prisoners of war, particularly in conjunction with the killing of surrendered and wounded prisoners of war. Belgium, the site of severe exploitation and violent mistreatment by the Germans during the war, had a much weaker voice in the dialogue on the war crimes trials, but charged the Germans of committing heinous atrocities against Belgian citizens. Woodrow Wilson, skeptical about the other countries’ agendas in the pursuit of the trials, called for a lenient course of action regarding the trials. However, the four countries agreed on the point that Germany should gather evidence against its own citizens charged as war criminals and present the evidence and the accused persons to the Allies, in accordance with the Treaty of Versailles; these accused would then be tried by an international tribunal. In result, the trials were postponed and United States withdrew from the proceedings.
The Weimar Republic during the Trials
In 1921, the brittle government of the Weimar Republic was caught in a vise as international pressure and domestic strife collided over the pending trials of the first war crime trials. Compliance with Allied demands, the German government argued, would threaten their fragile new republic. Over the course of the war, the bulk of Germany’s resources had been devoted to the war effort. Exhaustion of resources compounded by the loss of more than two million soldiers, demobilization, inflation, and political discontent from both far-leftist and rightist parties, rendered the German Republic an extremely fragile state. The immediate postwar period did not encourage German support for the war crimes trials or the new government. Recognizing the difficulty of their position, the German government’s approach to the war crime trials resulted in a carefully balanced act of attempted appeasement of both Allied and German demands.
As a solution, German Secretary of Finance, Matthias Erzberger led a motion to try German war criminals in Germany’s highest civilian court—Criminal Senate of the Imperial Court of Justice at Leipzig. In an effort to secure support from the Allies, the German proposal asserted that a German committee would investigate Germans charged as war criminals. The proposal also allowed for delegations from each of the prosecuting nations to be present at the trials.
The Leipzig Trials Begin
In the spring of 1921, the Germans assembled eight cases to be tried: four British cases, three French cases, and one Belgian case. These first eight cases comprised the Leipzig Trials. Aware of Allied claims that the Germans systematically violated international law, the court made a concerted effort to appear objective during the proceedings, but from the beginning of the trials in May 1921, German national interest governed the actions of the German court.
The British Cases
The Germans had a vested interest in appeasing British interests. After the war, Great Britain supported German interests during the Upper Silesian Crisis where Polish Silesians revolted against German rule in Western Silesia. Britain also supported the proposition to hold the trials in Germany.
In return, the Germans pursued the trial of the U-86 submarine crew, after the British abandoned the case. Helmut Patzig, commander of U-86, torpedoed the British hospital ship, Llandovery Castle, on June 27, 1918, and subsequently fired on the lifeboats carrying survivors. Sought after heavily by both the British and German governments following the war for violating multiple clauses within The Hague Convention, Patzig avoided capture and presumably returned to his home in Danzig. Under the Treaty of Versailles, German authorities could not apprehend him there. The British government had clamored for Patzig’s trial, but when it was determined that he could not be found, the British dropped the case. The German government did not. Under the Schücking Committee and against immense protest from the German public, the court brought to trial two of Patzig’s crew members: Johann Boldt and Ludwig Dithmar. The trial ended with the Court issuing both Boldt and Dithmar a four-year prison sentence. Dithmar received his discharge from the navy and Boldt lost the privilege of wearing his uniform. Perceived by the Allies as a light sentence, Claud Mullins—British delegate to the trials—explained the sentence carried significantly more weight in Germany. Free of the constraints of international law, the German court conducted the trials according to German law. Under German law, the military was judged according to laws specifically designated for military cases, separating it from the laws of German civilians. The trial of Boldt and Dithmar demonstrated the complexities in trying members of the military. Although it resulted in the demotion of their statuses, it did little else to men charged with committing wartime atrocities.
The Belgian Case
In contrast to the British cases, the Germans handled the French and Belgian cases with considerably less care and objectivity. Belgium’s only case at Leipzig was the case against Max Ramdohr. He was accused of severe cruelty toward Belgian youths who had “sabotaged” the German railroad line in Grammont. Dozens of young, male Belgian boys between the ages of twelve and eighteen testified that Ramdohr had imprisoned them in poor conditions and interrogated them by plunging their heads into buckets of ice water. A thirteen-year-old testified that Ramdohr had wrapped a string around his neck, then connected the string to a hook above his head and beat his bare legs with a cane. The Leipzig Court listened to the extensive testimonies against Ramdohr, but unlike the British cases, did not consider the evidence presented as legitimate because almost all of the evidence presented against Ramdohr rested on the testimonies of young boys. This German court did not take the evidence seriously because the trial was of a member of the German military, and evidence presented against him came from civilians. The court further argued that the age of the witnesses, and the fact that three years had passed since the events, the Belgian government could easily have swayed their witnesses to have false memories of the events. Based on these assertions, Ramdohr was acquitted.
The French Cases
Following Ramdohr’s acquittal, the French presented their long-awaited trial of Lieutenant-General Karl Stenger and his subordinate officer Major Benno Crusius. In August 1914, upon entering a French village, Stenger reportedly gave the order to the 58th Infantry Brigade to kill all of the wounded French soldiers and prisoners of war. Upon receiving word of this order, Crusius executed many French prisoners of war. Evidence produced by both German and French witnesses convinced the court that prisoners were executed during two separate incidents in 1914.
The trial did not proceed in the way anticipated by the French. On the day of the trial, Stenger appeared in court supported by two crutches, having lost his right leg in the course of the war. His uniform was bedecked in medals, most prominent of which was the Pour le Mérite. For the Germans, Stenger still embodied the quintessential war hero. His appearance emphasized the credibility of his testimony. Stenger calmly denied the charge that he had issued such an order, and the only prisoners who were shot were those who continued to fight. Improbable as the story was, it justified Stenger’s actions in the eyes of the court.
Soon thereafter, the trial shifted its focus to the actions of Stenger’s subordinate officer, Major Crusius. At the end of the trial, the court asserted that Crusius acted out of a misconstrued order from Stenger. However, Crusius could not be held entirely responsible for his actions because German doctors had determined he was “insane” at the time of the incident, and likewise, the court shared that opinion. The trial ended with Stenger’s acquittal and Crusius lost the right to wear his uniform and received a sentence of two years in prison, of which he had already served fourteen months.
The verdict outraged the French, who called for first called for Stenger’s trial in 1914. In their eyes, Stenger and Crusius had violated the “laws of war and humanity” many times in the execution of the French prisoners. French Prime Minister Alstrid Briand reacted immediately by ordering a withdrawal of the French delegation from the trials. The French government further stated French troops would continue to occupy the Rhine until “justice” was delivered at Leipzig. Both assertions were poor political maneuvers. Premier Briand’s decision to order the delegation to depart from the trials deeply offended the German court, particularly Statspräsident Heinrich Schmidt, whom the British delegation frequently praised as impartial based on his handling of the trials. With their departure, the French government blatantly accused the Leipzig judges of partiality and followed up this maneuver with a threat to the Germans that French troops would continue to occupy the Rhine. Their threat did nothing more than antagonize the Germans, and support the German idea of an unfair Treaty of Versailles
Evaluating the Leipzig Trials presents several challenges. Both the news reports of the era and historians discuss the “failures” of the trials and often overlook its accomplishments. The blatant partiality of the Germans during the cases was clearly displayed by the fact that of the British cases in which six men were tried, five received sentences. The French and Belgian cases tried six men as well, only one of whom received a prison sentence.
However, the flaws of the trials should not entirely overshadow the events of the first international war crimes trial. The Allies exhibited significant cooperation in their pursuit of administering punishment for war criminals, in spite of their vying agendas. Germany also, demonstrated cooperation with the Allies, during the years prior to and during the trials. While the trials were a failure in legal terms, they marked a significant step in the international attempt to protect international law and punish persons who violated the laws of war and humanity in times of war and, during the revision of international law at the Geneva Convention of 1929, influenced the development of protective clauses concerning prisoners of war and captured troops.
Ignored War Crimes: Serbia and the Armenian Genocide
The 1921 Leipzig Trials were of mixed success. One of their chief failures came not from the German high court, but from the Allies themselves. Wrapped in their respective, post-war misery, England, France, and Belgium focused only on crimes that had occurred against their people. The United States was largely left out of the proceedings. And as a result, no one from the international community that oversaw the first war crimes trials looked at war crimes beyond the Western Front. None of the countries pressed for international war crimes trials to be held for actions that had occurred on the Eastern, Middle Eastern, or African fronts during World War I. As a result, the perpetrators not only “got away” with the war crimes committed in these areas, but the trials set an early precedent for prosecuting only war crimes that were committed against Western powers, ignoring those committed against other nations and peoples. Such was the case for the greatest crime of World War, the Armenian Genocide, as well as numerous others in Serbia and Africa.
Learning Objectives
- Understand the events and importance of the Armenian Genocide.
- Evaluate the significance of “ignore war crimes” of World War I.
Key Terms / Key Concepts
Armenians: ethnic, Christian minority group living in Turkey during World War I
Armenian Genocide: mass murder of Armenian people in 1915 – 1917 by the Young Turks
Rodolphe Archibald Reiss: internationally renowned criminologist who investigated Austro-Hungarian war crimes committed in Serbia in World War I
Talaat Pasha: minister of the interior of the Ottoman Empire during World War I; a figure central to the plan of Armenians eradication
Three Pashas: three central government figures in the Young Turks: Talaat Pasha (minister of the interior), Enver Pasha (minister of war), and Djemal Pasha (minister of the navy)
War crimes against Serbia: mass murder against Serbian people carried out by the Austro-Hungarian forces in World War I
Young Turks: hyper-nationalist group who came to power in Turkey through a coup in 1908 and were instrumental in the destruction of the Armenians
War Crimes against Serbia
In early 1915, the Serbian Relief Fund—a London-based organization—beseeched British citizens to help save the Serbian people from extinction. The organization’s pamphlet, Serbia’s Cup of Sorrow, passionately exposed the dire situation the Serbian people faced because of the Austro-Hungarian army’s violent invasion of the country. The fiery language invoked imagery of the Austro-Hungarian army descending upon Serbia as the four horsemen of the apocalypse, bringing with them the war, famine, disease, and death which now “stalked” the Serbian countryside. Interspersed between accounts of starvation and illness, colorful accounts and illustrations of the army’s pre-meditated intentions to eradicate Serbia’s innocent civilians proliferated throughout the sixteen-page document. By the end of the war, nearly two hundred ads for the Serbian Relief Fund had appeared in England’s The Times. The enormous swell of support arose because of Austria-Hungary’s repeated invasions and subsequent occupation of Serbia in 1916. To galvanize support for their small but strategically important ally in the Balkans, the British organized domestic and foreign relief agencies. Serbia’s desperate plight also attracted support from Russia, France, and the United States. And then, within a year of the war’s conclusion, the Allies’ attitude toward Serbia underwent a radical shift.
The Austro-Hungarian army waged a particularly brutal invasion in order to suppress the Serbians. The army invasion proved shockingly brutal not only because of the ruthless tactics employed but also because of the scope and concentration of the violence. Over the course of thirteen days, the Austro-Hungarian army advanced only twenty miles into Serbia before being repulsed by Serbian forces. However, in that narrow period of time the army reportedly torched villages and brutally murdered between 3,500 and 4,000 Serbian civilians. Collectively, the murders are referred to as the War crimes against Serbia.
Internationally renowned criminologist Rodolphe Archibald Reiss investigated this account of the massacre at the Serbian village Chabatz, where he uncovered a mass grave. He found the remains of over eighty corpses of varying ages protruding from earth. Many of the victims’ hands were still bound with rope, while tattered clothing still hung from others. The evidence unearthed at the site supported a deposition given by an Austrian corporal who witnessed the mass execution.
In 1916, the British published a second edition of Reiss’s investigations. Reiss lengthened his work substantially by adding considerably more first-hand accounts and depositions testimonies than were included in the first edition, but little difference existed in the subjects of the two editions. At the time, stirring accounts of the Austro-Hungarian army’s torture of Serbian civilians and destruction of property also proliferated throughout British newspapers.
Aftermath of the War Crimes in Serbia
For over two years, the Allies tried to negotiate the prosecution of alleged “war criminals” before an international military tribunal. Over the course of their negotiations, however, the Allied concern for the victims of war crimes committed outside of Western Europe faded and their anxiety regarding Eastern Europe increased. The committees of the Big Four not only ignored the requests of the Yugoslavian delegation, but almost entirely excluded them from discussions. The postwar perception of the region as a turbulent, war-mongering zone directly influenced the course of action taken by the framers of the international war crimes trials. Their hesitancy conveyed a critical message about the Balkans: the experiences of the Balkan Wars and World War I cemented Western notions that Serbia and the Balkans posed a significant danger to Europe. Thus, the Austrian and Hungarian perpetrators of war crimes in Serbia were never tried for their wartime atrocities.
The Armenian Genocide
The Armenians were an ethnic, Christian minority group who historically had lived in present-day Turkey and Armenia for centuries. In the period of the late 1800s and early 1900s, Turkey and Armenia were part of the Ottoman Empire—an empire governed by Muslim Turks. Although the Armenians had strong communities throughout the Ottoman Empire, tension existed between them and the Turks. Armenians were discriminated against, and violence erupted between the two sides in the late 1800s. Of all the atrocities and crimes committed in World War I, none remains as harrowing as the Armenian Genocide.
The Young Turks
In 1908, a revolutionary group came to power in the Ottoman Empire through a coup d’état—the Young Turks. The group was extremely nationalist and believed in a “Turkish state for the Turks.” Within a year, violence again erupted between the Turks and the Armenians during an attempted countercoup. Overnight, the Young Turks had branded the Armenians as an “internal enemy” and a scapegoat for the violence and discontent spreading throughout the empire. The Turks outnumbered and outgunned their opponents, and the Armenians suffered extensively. By the end of 1909, over 20,000 Armenians were killed.
Little attention from other countries was afforded to the mass killings of the Armenians, a point which the Young Turks undoubtedly noticed. The lack of response by anyone with the power to do something established a precedent in the Ottoman Empire; this conveyed the message that it was possible to slaughter people systematically and there would be no repercussions.
Over the succeeding five to six years, the Young Turks became increasingly nationalist and authoritative. They introduced three radical nationalist leaders into their government, who became collectively known as the Three Pashas. These men, aided by their supporters, would lay the groundwork for the Armenian Genocide.
World War I and the Armenian Genocide
War provides cover for some of the most heinous human actions because it distracts government and civilian view toward the bigger problems and pictures at hand. In much the same way that Adolf Hitler’s war of extermination against the Jews would take place during the height of World War II, the Turkish government would use the cover of World War I to shield foreign eyes from the fact that they were systematically exterminating the Armenians in their country.
In 1914, the Ottoman Empire entered World War I on the side of Germany and Austria-Hungary. This immediately pitted it against Russia—their neighbor to the northeast. Despite some initial success on the Eastern Front, the Ottoman Empire quickly experienced setbacks. To account for the floundering Turkish war effort, the government asserted that the Armenians were betraying them from within. Their argument claimed that the Armenians, as Christians, were not only anti-Turkish, but pro-Russia, which was also a Christian nation.
In April 1915, the Turkish government began the systematic destruction of the Armenians. Thousands of Armenians were rounded up in Constantinople, which was the capitol at the time. Armenians were similarly rounded-up throughout the Ottoman Empire; their businesses and homes were seized or destroyed. The men were generally shot on site. While the women, children, and elderly were meant to be deported. Although the Turkish government spoke of “deporting” Armenians, the reality was far grislier. Women, children, and elderly people were forced on long death marches with scarcely any supplied little clothing, food, or water—toward the deserts of Syria and Iraq. They were poorly guarded and crossed through regions where they were attacked, raped, and murdered. Very few of the Armenians on these marches survived. Those who did arrive in Syria and Iraq only to find that they were not welcome. Often, they were shot upon arrival.
Evidence of the Armenian Genocide
The Armenian Genocide was the attempted destruction of a race of people by the Turkish government and military from 1915 to 1917, and sporadically until 1923. And yet, more than a century later, the Turkish government denies that the destruction of the Armenians was a “genocide.” However,evidence does exist of this war crime.
Central to the evidence of the Armenian Genocide is the fact that there is surviving records from the government of Talaat Pasha—The Young Turk’s minister of the Interior during the war—that shows his overt planning for the execution of the Armenians. In one correspondence with Henry Morgenthau—U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Pasha presented Morgenthau with an “astonishing request”:
I wish you would get the American life insurance companies to give us [The Turkish government] a list of their Armenian policy holders. They are practically dead now and have left no heirs to collect money. The government is the beneficiary now. Will you do so?
Henry Morgenthau refused the request. He later recorded Talaat Pasha’s boast to friends.
I have accomplished more toward solving the Armenian problem in three months than Abdul Hamid [last sultan of the Ottoman Empire] accomplished in thirty years!
Turkish letters recounted the brutal extermination of the Armenians. One soldier reported how during his appointment to a quarter of Turkey he witnessed the arrival of the Armenians. Men, women, and children were separated. The men were taken out of town in small groups and shot. They were later buried in mass graves. Women and children were “deported” and attacked by organized groups of bandits who raped, robbed, and murdered bands of Armenians walking through the desert. He later reported seeing masses of Armenian corpses beside the roadways.
Although very few Germans participated in the killing of the Armenians, many witnessed the events as bystanders.Because of Germany’s alliance with the Ottoman Empire, the two governments were closely aligned. Since before the war, German military advisors had been stationed in Turkey, and worked closely with the Turkish military. During the Armenian Genocide, German officers watched from the sidelines as the Turkish government engaged in the destruction of the Armenians. Surviving testimony demonstrates the role of Germans during the genocide. German Lieutenant Commander von Humann wrote,“Because of their conspiracy with the Russians, the Armenians are being more or less annihilated. That is hard, but it is useful.”
The Germans were not the only Europeans to witness the Armenian Genocide. Russian soldiers also saw the massacre of the Armenians. Upon their arrival into such villages of eastern Turkey as Mush, they found mass graves of Armenians shot on the outskirts of town.
Aftermath
The Armenian people lost their homes, property, and lives. In the aftermath of World War I, the Young Turks had proved enormously successful in their goal to “Turkify” the Turkish state. At least 800,000 Armenians were dead. Perhaps more than one million.
In 1939, just before the start of World War II, Hitler would rally his troops for the destruction of Poland by declaring, “Who today still remembers the annihilation of the Armenians?” In so doing, he assured his troops that whatever methods of destruction were employed against the Poles, it would ultimately be ignored by the Western nations. Afterall, the West had ignored the slaughter of the Armenians, and never pursued the perpetrators. This choice on the part of the Allies signaled to Hitler that the West would allow brutal warfare to take place anywhere outside of Western Europe or the United States because it did not directly affect them or their important allies.
The Allies Choose Inaction
The Allies were well-aware of the persecution of the Armenians. To their credit, Britain, France, and Russia openly denounced the crime as violating “laws of humanity” during the war. After the war, Britain called for prosecution of the perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide. However, their calls fell short. European countries, especially France, were struggling to rebuild following the war; their primary goal was to hold the people who had destroyed French lives and property accountable for their actions. Likewise, the British public failed to rally behind the calls to prosecute Turkish war criminals. In the eyes of many Western Europeans, the issue of Ottoman war crimes should be handled by the Turks themselves, rather than an international tribunal. After all, World War I resulted in the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire; therefore, it no longer posed a threat to Western Europe or their immediate interests.
To the credit of the post-war Turkish government, they did hold trials for the perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide. Eighteen perpetrators, including the Three Pashas, were tried. Of the eighteen, only three were executed, and the rest were acquitted. Talaat Pasha was assassinated while in Berlin in 1921 as part of a covert, Turkish mission to execute perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide. His killer was later acquitted.
Legacy
The Allies—Britain, France, and the United States—headed the effort to hold war criminals responsible for their actions following World War I. Their efforts successfully led to the idea of an international tribunal that would hold individuals responsible for their wartime atrocities. However, putting the idea of such trials into practice proved far more difficult. Not only did the idea of war crimes trials prove logistically difficult, the Allies themselves also focused only on war crimes committed against their people and their immediate allies. As a result, the most heinous of all war crimes committed in World War I went largely unchecked and unpunished by the international community. Inaction set a dangerous precedent that, in essence, established that war crimes carried out in places outside of Western Europe could be ignored.
International Law Revised: Geneva 1929
The brutality inflicted on humans, particularly civilians, during World War I prompted the international community to try protecting humans during future conflict. Led by Great Britain, France, and the United States, the global community was, in fact, a Western community that focused on the restructuring of international law, as well as the prosecution of war criminals before an international court. Most of all, there was a concerted effort to protect human beings, especially civilians and prisoners of war, in future wars.
Learning Objectives
- Understand the significance of, and the reasons for, the passage of the Third Geneva Convention.
Key Terms / Key Concepts
Third Geneva Convention: 1929 passage of revised international laws protecting prisoners of war
International Law and Warfare
When World War I erupted, all major belligerent nations had pledged to abide by the rules of warfare prescribed by two sets of international laws: the 1907 Hague Convention, which explained the rules of warfare with regards to prisoners of war and use of weaponry; and the 1906 Geneva Convention that prescribed the rules for treating human beings during warfare. The goals of these two sets of international laws were regulating warfare to make it more “humane.” As World War I dragged on, and every single major combatant nation violated the rules of warfare time and again, the result was that World War I became the most violent and expansive war in history. (Twenty years later, World War II would surpass it in scope and violence.)
In 1919, the world reeled from the knowledge that World War I had resulted in 40 million deaths in four and a half years. The figures included military, civilian, and 1918-flu related deaths. Moreover, the international community was astounded by the violence committed against civilians, especially in France and Belgium. And over the course of four and a half years of war, millions of people had become prisoners of war. Of that figure, thousands experienced cruel mistreatment including beatings, neglect, disease, and non-deliberate starvation. It was evident that international law had failed to protect humanity. After World War I, it was evident to lawmakers that international law must be revised.
The Third Geneva Convention
Critically, the international community noted that the Hague Convention—a document whose primary focus was on technology and military operations in warfare—had prescribed the treatment of prisoners of war. Whereas, the Geneva Convention had focused on the treatment of human beings, including the wounded and civilians. By lumping prisoners of war into a convention that focused primarily on technology, the prisoners of war were stripped of their humanity, as well as recognized as a collective, amorphous group, rather than individuals. The mixed success of the 1921 Leipzig War Crimes Trials—which focused largely on the mistreatment of prisoners of war in World War I—demonstrated the essentiality of upholding solid, specific, international laws protecting humanity during wartime.
In 1929, framers of international laws from across the world passed the Third Geneva Convention. This document recognized the status of prisoners of war as human beings with a collective right to humane treatment. Among other provisions, the Third Geneva Convention established rules regarding the diet, housing, hygiene, and medical treatment of prisoners of war. It further established rules for the transfer and release of prisoners, as well as prescribed treatment according to rank, labor, and financial resources.
The chief achievement of the Third Geneva Convention was its acknowledgment that, rather than being “part of the war machine,” prisoners of war were human beings and must be treated as such. Failure to respect the rules regarding humane treatment of prisoners of war would (theoretically) constitute a war crime in future warfare.
Legacy
At the time of its passage, 196 countries ratified the Third Geneva Convention. And from the outside, it looked as though the international community’s pledge to protect humans in future warfare would prove successful. Scarcely anyone could have predicted that, in ten short years, the world would be engaged in a second and far more violent war. A deadly war that would not only violate the Third Geneva Convention, but shatter it as genocides were carried out in Europe and the Far East by Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Still, the greatest success of the Third Geneva Convention is the international dedication to protecting humans in warfare. Following World War II, framers of international law would meet again to pass the Fourth Geneva Convention—a document that still serves as the guiding rules of warfare in the 21st century.
Primary Source: 1929 Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War
Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War.
Geneva, 27 July 1929.
“Part 1: General Provisions” [Abridged]
PREAMBLE
Recognizing that, in the extreme event of a war, it will be the duty of every Power, to mitigate as far as possible, the inevitable rigours thereof and to alleviate the condition of prisoners of war;
Being desirous of developing the principles which have inspired the international conventions of The Hague, in particular the Convention concerning the Laws and Customs of War and the Regulations thereunto annexed,
Have resolved to conclude a Convention for that purpose and have appointed as their Plenipotentiaries:
(Here follow the names of Plenipotentiaries)
Who, having communicated their full powers, found in good and due form, have agreed is follows.
PART I : GENERAL PROVISIONS - ART. 1.
LAND;LIMITATION ART:
Article 1. The present Convention shall apply without prejudice to the stipulations of Part VII:
(1) To all persons referred to in Articles 1 [ Link ] , 2 [ Link ] and 3 [ Link ] of the Regulations annexed to the Hague Convention
(IV) of 18 October 1907, concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land, who are captured by the enemy.
(2) To all persons belonging to the armed forces of belligerents who are captured by the enemy in the course of operations of maritime or aerial war, subject to such exceptions (derogations) as the conditions of such capture render inevitable. Nevertheless these exceptions shall not infringe the fundamental principles of the present Convention; they shall cease from the moment when the captured persons shall have reached a prisoners of war camp.
PART I : GENERAL PROVISIONS - ART. 2.
Art. 2. Prisoners of war are in the power of the hostile Government, but not of the individuals or formation which captured them.
They shall at all times be humanely treated and protected, particularly against acts of violence, from insults and from public curiosity.
Measures of reprisal against them are forbidden.
PART I : GENERAL PROVISIONS - ART. 3.
Art. 3. Prisoners of war are entitled to respect for their persons and honour. Women shall be treated with all consideration due to their sex.
Prisoners retain their full civil capacity.
PART I : GENERAL PROVISIONS - ART. 4.
Art. 4. The detaining Power is required to provide for the maintenance of prisoners of war in its charge.
Differences of treatment between prisoners are permissible only if such differences are based on the military rank, the state of physical or mental health, the professional abilities, or the sex of those who benefit from them.
From International Committee of the Red Cross
Attributions
The Holocaust and other Genocides: History, Representation, Ethics. Ed. Helmut
Walser Smith. Vanderbilt University Press, 2002. 149-178.
Hull, Isabel V. Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and Practices of War in Imperial
Germany. Cornell University, 2005. 266-278.
Crowe, David M. War Crimes, Genocide, and Justice: A Global History. New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
Mitrović, Andrej. Serbia’s Great War: 1914-1918. London: Hurst & Company, 2007.
Reiss, Rodolphe Archibald. How Austria-Hungary Waged War in Serbia: Personal
Investigations of a Neutral. Librairie Armand Colin: Paris, 1915.
Reiss, Rodolphe Archibald. Report Upon the Atrocities Committed by the Austro
Hungarian Army during the First Invasion of Serbia. London: Simpkin, Marshall,
Hamilton, Kent & Company, Ltd. 1916.
Vick, Alison, "A Catalyst for the Development of Human Rights: 1914-1929." Virginia Tech. 2013. (Masters Thesis)
"(Geneva) Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, 1929." Hosted by: International Committee of the Red Cross.
Treaties, States parties, and Commentaries - Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War, 1929 (icrc.org)
Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and of the author, Alison Vick