SECTION V.-Safe-conduct-Spies-War traitors—Guides.

proclamation.

SAFE-CONDUCT.

750. All intercourse between the territories occupied by belligerent armies, whether by traffic, written or printed correspondence, cable, telegraph, telephone, or wireless telegraphy, or in any other way, ceases. This is the general rule to be observed without special Exceptions to this rule, whether by safe-conduct or by permission to trade on a small or large scale, or by exchanging mails, or by travel from one territory into the other, or by other methods of communication, can take place only according to agreement approved by the government, or by sanction of the highest military authority. Violation of this rule of nonintercourse is highly punishable.

751. Ambassadors, and all other diplomatic agents of neutral powers, accredited to the enemy, may receive safe-conducts through the territories occupied by the belligerents, unless there are military reasons to the contrary, and unless they can reach the place of their destination conveniently by another route. It implies no international affront if safe-conduct is refused. Such passes are usually given by the supreme authority of the State, and not by subordinate officers.

SPIES.

752. A spy is a person who secretly, in disguise or under false pretenses, obtains, or seeks to obtain, information in the zone of operations of a belligerent with the intention of communicating it to the enemy.

753. Soldiers not in disguise who have penetrated into the zone of operations of a hostile army for the purpose of obtaining information are not considered spies. Similarly, soldiers or civilians carrying out their mission openly, charged with the delivery of dispatches destined either for their own army or that of the enemy, and likewise the individuals sent in balloons to deliver dispatches or to maintain communication between the various parts of an army or a territory, shall not be considered spies.

754. A spy is punishable with death by hanging by the neck, whether or not he succeed in obtaining the information or in conveying it to the enemy.

A spy taken in the act shall not be punished until after trial and conviction.

755. Spies, war traitors, and war rebels are not exchanged according to the common law of war. The exchange of such persons would require a special cartel, authorized by the government, or, at a great distance from it, by the chief commander of the army in the field.

756. A successful spy or war traitor, safely returned to his own army and afterwards captured as an enemy, is not subject to punishment for his acts as a spy or war traitor, but he may be held in closer custody as a person individually dangerous.

757. If a citizen of the United States, be he a military or civil officer or a private citizen, obtains information of military value and betrays it to the enemy, he shall, upon conviction, suffer death.

WAR TRAITORS.

758. A traitor under the law of war, or a war traitor, is a person in a place or district under military government who, unauthorized by the military commander, gives information of any kind to the enemy, or holds intercourse with him.

759. A war traitor is always severely punished. If his offense consists in betraying to the enemy anything concerning the condition, safety, operations, or plans of the troops holding or occupying the place or district, his punishment is death.

760. If a citizen of occupied territory gives information to his own government or its army, being separated therefrom by the hostile army, he is a war traitor, and, upon conviction, death is the usual penalty for his offense.

761. The law of war, like the criminal law regarding other offenses, makes no distinction on account of the difference of sexes concerning the spy, the war traitor, or the war rebel.

762. All unauthorized or secret communication with the enemy is considered treasonable by the law of war.

Foreign residents in an invaded or occupied territory, or foreign visitors in the same, can claim no immunity from this law. They may communicate with foreign parts, or with the inhabitants of the hostile country, so far as the military authority permits, but no further. Instant expulsion from the occupied territory would be the very least punishment for the infraction of this rule.

GUIDES.

763. All armies in the field stand in need of guides, and impress them if they can not obtain them otherwise.

No person having been forced by the enemy to serve as guide is punishable for having done so.

764. If a citizen of a hostile and invaded district voluntarily serves as a guide to the enemy, or offers to do so, he is deemed a war traitor, and shall suffer death.

765. A citizen serving voluntarily as a guide against his own country commits treason, and will be dealt with according to the law of his country.

766. Guides, when it is clearly proved that they have misled intentionally, may be put to death.

SECTION VI.—Exchange of prisoners-Flags of truce-Flags of

protection.

767. Exchanges of prisoners take place number for number, rank for rank, wounded for wounded, with added condition for added condition-such, for instance, as not to serve for a certain period.

768. In exchanging prisoners of war, such numbers of persons of inferior rank may be substituted as an equivalent for one of superior rank as may be agreed upon by cartel, which requires the sanction of the government or of the commander of the army in the field.

769. The surplus number of prisoners of war remaining after an exchange has taken place is sometimes released either for the payment of a stipulated sum of money, or, in urgent cases, of provisions, clothing, or other necessaries.

Such arrangement, however, requires the sanction of the highest authority.

770. The exchange of prisoners of war is an act of convenience to both belligerents. If no general cartel has been concluded, it can not be demanded by either of them. No belligerent is obliged to exchange prisoners of war.

A cartel is voidable as soon as either party has violated it.

771. No exchange of prisoners shall be made except after complete capture, and after an accurate account of them, and a list of the captured officers, has been taken.

FLAGS OF TRUCE.

772. An individual who is authorized by one of the belligerents to enter into communication with the other, and who carries a white flag, is considered as a bearer of a flag of truce. He has a right to inviolability, as well as the trumpeter, bugler, or drummer, the flag bearer and the interpreter who may accompany him.

773. The bearer of a flag of truce can not insist upon being admitted. He must always be admitted with great caution. Unnecessary frequency is carefully to be avoided.

774. If the bearer of a flag of truce offers himself during an engagement, he can be admitted as a very rare exception only. It is no breach of good faith to retain such flag of truce, if admitted during the engagement. Firing is not required to cease on the appearance of a flag of truce in battle.

775. If the bearer of a flag of truce, presenting himself during an engagement, is killed or wounded, it furnishes no ground of complaint whatever.

776. If it be discovered, and fairly proved, that a flag of truce has been abused for surreptitiously obtaining military knowledge, the bearer of the flag thus abusing his sacred character is deemed a spy. So sacred is the character of a flag of truce, and so necessary is its sacredness, that while its abuse is an especially heinous offense, great caution is requisite, on the other hand, in convicting the bearer of a flag of truce as a spy.

FLAGS OF PROTECTION.

777. Dressing stations, ambulance stations, and hospitals of whatever description, or buildings temporarily used as such, whether in besieged places, on or near the line of battle, or on the line of communications, are designated by hoisting the national flag and the red cross flag of the Geneva Convention.

Honorable belligerents will abstain from inflicting intentional damage on establishments thus designated and will be guided by such flags of protection as much as the contingencies of the fight will permit.

778. It is justly considered an act of bad faith, of infamy or fiendishness, to deceive an enemy by improper use of flags of protection, especially of white flags and of the red-cross flags reserved to designate medical establishments. Such acts of bad faith call for notification to the commander of the hostile forces and to his Government, and severe punishment of the responsible officers.

When in occupied territory treacherous use is made of such flags by inhabitants to convey information to guerrillas or detachments of the enemy's forces, such act is doubly reprehensible and justifies instant application of severe measures.

779. The besieging belligerent may request the besieged to designate observatories, precious libraries, scientific museums, and buildings containing collections of works of art, so that their destruction may be avoided as far as practicable.

SECTION VII.-The parole.

780. Prisoners of war may be released from captivity by exchange, and, under certain circumstances, also by parole.

781. The term “parole” designates the pledge of individual good faith and honor to do, or to omit doing, certain acts after he who gives his parole shall have been released, or the conditions of his confinement modified.

782. The pledge of the parole is always an individual, but not a private act.

783. The parole applies chiefly to prisoners of war whom the captor allows to return to their country, or to live in greater freedom within the captor's country or territory, on conditions stated in the parole.

784. Release of prisoners of war by exchange is the general rule; release by parole is the exception.

785. Breaking the parole is punished with death when the person breaking the parole is recaptured after again serving in the enemy's forces.

Accurate lists, therefore, of the paroled persons must be kept by the belligerents.

786. When paroles are given and received there must be an exchange of two written documents, in which the name and rank of the paroled individuals are accurately and truthfully stated.

787. Commissioned officers only are allowed to give their parole, and they can give it only with the permission of their superior, as long as a superior in rank is within reach.

788. No noncommissioned officer or private can give his parole except through an officer. Individual paroles not given through an officer are not only void, but subject the individuals giving them to the punishment of death as deserters. The only admissible exception is where individuals, properly separated from their commands, have suffered long confinement without the possibility of being paroled through an officer.

789. No paroling on the battlefield; no paroling of entire bodies of troops after a battle; and no dismissal of large numbers of prisoners, with a general declaration that they are paroled, is permitted, or of any value.

790. In capitulations for the surrender of strong places or fortitied camps the commanding officer, in cases of urgent necessity, may agree that the troops under his command shall not fight again during the war, unless exchanged.