This power has been so freely exercised, and large portions of the Declaration, not thereby affected, have proved to be so inapplicable to modern conditions, as disclosed by the war, that the document, so far from providing reliable guidance, is now a mere source of hopeless confusion.
Holland critiques the Declaration for being outdated and causing confusion rather than providing guidance.
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More from Thomas Erskine Holland
The justification of a resort either to reprisals or to war, in any given case, depends, of course, upon the nature of the acts complained of, and upon the validity of the excuses put forward either for the acts themselves, or for failure…
Since compulsory service has turned standing armies into national armies, war has also become national.
The general recognition of these principles, and of those also which relate to prisoners, would mark a distinct step of progress towards the goal pursued with so honourable a persistency by the Institut de Droit International.
It has long been a universally recognised custom of warfare that a flag of truce must not be fired on, and yet we have seen that rule violated on several occasions during the late war.
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