Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field

Art. 139. An armistice is binding upon the belligerents from the day of the
agreed commencement; but the officers of the armies are responsible from
the day only when they receive official information of its existence.

Art. 140. Commanding officers have the right to conclude armistices binding
on the district over which their command extends, but such armistice is
subject to the ratification of the superior authority, and ceases so soon
as it is made known to the enemy that the armistice is not ratified, even
if a certain time for the elapsing between giving notice of cessation and
the resumption of hostilities should have been stipulated for.

Art. 141. It is incumbent upon the contracting parties of an armistice to
stipulate what intercourse of persons or traffic between the inhabitants of
the territories occupied by the hostile armies shall be allowed, if any.

If nothing is stipulated the intercourse remains suspended, as during
actual hostilities.

Art. 142. An armistice is not a partial or a temporary peace; it is only
the suspension of military operations to the extent agreed upon by the
parties.

Art. 143. When an armistice is concluded between a fortified place and the
army besieging it, it is agreed by all the authorities on this subject that
the besieger must cease all extension, perfection, or advance of his
attacking works as much so as from attacks by main force.

But as there is a difference of opinion among martial jurists, whether the
besieged have the right to repair breaches or to erect new works of defense
within the place during an armistice, this point should be determined by
express agreement between the parties.

Art. 144. So soon as a capitulation is signed, the capitulator has no right
to demolish, destroy, or injure the works, arms, stores, or ammunition, in
his possession, during the time which elapses between the signing and the
execution of the capitulation, unless otherwise stipulated in the same.

Art. 145. When an armistice is clearly broken by one of the parties, the
other party is released from all obligation to observe it.

Art. 146. Prisoners taken in the act of breaking an armistice must be
treated as prisoners of war, the officer alone being responsible who gives
the order for such a violation of an armistice. The highest authority of
the belligerent aggrieved may demand redress for the infraction of an
armistice.

Art. 147. Belligerents sometimes conclude an armistice while their
plenipotentiaries are met to discuss the conditions of a treaty of peace;
but plenipotentiaries may meet without a preliminary armistice; in the
latter case, the war is carried on without any abatement.

SECTION IX

Assassination

Art. 148. The law of war does not allow proclaiming either an individual
belonging to the hostile army, or a citizen, or a subject of the hostile
government, an outlaw, who may be slain without trial by any captor, any
more than the modern law of peace allows such intentional outlawry; on the
contrary, it abhors such outrage. The sternest retaliation should follow
the murder committed in consequence of such proclamation, made by whatever
authority. Civilized nations look with horror upon offers of rewards for
the assassination of enemies as relapses into barbarism.

SECTION X

Insurrection – Civil War – Rebellion

Art. 149. Insurrection is the rising of people in arms against their
government, or a portion of it, or against one or more of its laws, or
against an officer or officers of the government. It may be confined to
mere armed resistance, or it may have greater ends in view.

Art. 150. Civil war is war between two or more portions of a country or
state, each contending for the mastery of the whole, and each claiming to
be the legitimate government. The term is also sometimes applied to war of
rebellion, when the rebellious provinces or portions of the state are
contiguous to those containing the seat of government.

Art. 151. The term rebellion is applied to an insurrection of large extent,
and is usually a war between the legitimate government of a country and
portions of provinces of the same who seek to throw off their allegiance to
it and set up a government of their own.

Art. 152. When humanity induces the adoption of the rules of regular war to
ward rebels, whether the adoption is partial or entire, it does in no way
whatever imply a partial or complete acknowledgement of their government,
if they have set up one, or of them, as an independent and sovereign power.
Neutrals have no right to make the adoption of the rules of war by the
assailed government toward rebels the ground of their own acknowledgment of
the revolted people as an independent power.

Art. 153. Treating captured rebels as prisoners of war, exchanging them,
concluding of cartels, capitulations, or other warlike agreements with
them; addressing officers of a rebel army by the rank they may have in the
same; accepting flags of truce; or, on the other hand, proclaiming Martial
Law in their territory, or levying war-taxes or forced loans, or doing any
other act sanctioned or demanded by the law and usages of public war
between sovereign belligerents, neither proves nor establishes an
acknowledgment of the rebellious people, or of the government which they
may have erected, as a public or sovereign power. Nor does the adoption of
the rules of war toward rebels imply an engagement with them extending
beyond the limits of these rules. It is victory in the field that ends the
strife and settles the future relations between the contending parties.

Art. 154. Treating, in the field, the rebellious enemy according to the law
and usages of war has never prevented the legitimate government from trying
the leaders of the rebellion or chief rebels for high treason, and from
treating them accordingly, unless they are included in a general amnesty.

Art. 155. All enemies in regular war are divided into two general classes –
that is to say, into combatants and noncombatants, or unarmed citizens of
the hostile government.

The military commander of the legitimate government, in a war of rebellion,
distinguishes between the loyal citizen in the revolted portion of the
country and the disloyal citizen. The disloyal citizens may further be
classified into those citizens known to sympathize with the rebellion
without positively aiding it, and those who, without taking up arms, give
positive aid and comfort to the rebellious enemy without being bodily
forced thereto.

Art. 156. Common justice and plain expediency require that the military
commander protect the manifestly loyal citizens, in revolted territories,
against the hardships of the war as much as the common misfortune of all
war admits.

The commander will throw the burden of the war, as much as lies within his
power, on the disloyal citizens, of the revolted portion or province,
subjecting them to a stricter police than the noncombatant enemies have to
suffer in regular war; and if he deems it appropriate, or if his government
demands of him that every citizen shall, by an oath of allegiance, or by
some other manifest act, declare his fidelity to the legitimate government,
he may expel, transfer, imprison, or fine the revolted citizens who refuse
to pledge themselves anew as citizens obedient to the law and loyal to the
government.

Whether it is expedient to do so, and whether reliance can be placed upon
such oaths, the commander or his government have the right to decide.

Art. 157. Armed or unarmed resistance by citizens of the United States
against the lawful movements of their troops is levying war against the
United States, and is therefore treason.

Author: international

Mentioned in these Entries

Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field, country.