"The duty of seeing that international law is obeyed, and of
punishing violations of it, belongs, in the first instance, to
States, each within the limits of its own supremacy. The
administration of the law of war ought therefore to be
intrusted primarily to the State which wields the public power
in the place where an offence is committed. No State will
lightly, and without unpleasantness and danger, expose itself
to a just charge of having neglected its international duties;
it will not do so even when it knows that it runs no risk of
war on the part Of neutral States. Every State, even the most
powerful, will gain sensibly in honour with God and man if it
is found to be faithful and sincere in respect and obedience
to the law of nations.

"Should we be deceiving ourselves if we admitted that a belief
in the law of nations, as in a sacred and necessary authority,
ought to facilitate the enforcement of discipline in the Army
and help to prevent many faults and many harmful excesses? I,
for my part, am convinced that the error, which has been
handed down to us from antiquity, according to which all law
is suspended during war, and everything is allowable against
the enemy nation--that this abominable error can but increase
the unavoidable sufferings and evils of war without necessity,
and without utility from the point of view of that energetic
way of making war which I also think is the right way.

"With reference to several rules being stated with the
qualifications 'if possible,' 'according to circumstances,' we
look on this as a safety-valve, intended to preserve the