On the record
This was, in my opinion, a mistake, which has been avoided in more recent times, in which the written law of war has been developed with such marvellous rapidity.
Said by
Thomas Erskine Holland
Source
gutenberg.orgEditor's note · Context
Holland critiques past mistakes in the development of written laws of war.
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Since compulsory service has turned standing armies into national armies, war has also become national.
If in our own day a law recognised by the civilised world forbids, in a general way, the soldier to make booty in warfare on land, we have here a great advance in civilisation, and the jurists have had their share in bringing it about.
Success can come only from the religious moral education of individuals and from the feeling of honour and sense of justice of commanders who enforce the law and conform to it so far as the exceptional circumstances of war permit.
In it the noblest virtues of mankind are developed; courage and the abnegation of self, faithfulness to duty, and the spirit of sacrifice: the soldier gives his life.
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