A School History of the Great War
/ 2008-11-22 00:00:00
These wars made it clear
that with the applications of modern science warfare had become so
terrible that, if the nations could not arrange by agreement for its
abolition, they should at least take steps to lessen its horrors. This
was the chief reason back of the invitation for a second Hague
Conference, which was issued by the Czar at the suggestion of President
Roosevelt. Forty-seven nations--nearly all the nations of the world---
were represented when the conference assembled on June 15, 1907.
Attempts were made to reopen the questions of disarmament and compulsory
arbitration, but without success. Germany again stood firmly against
both suggestions. The conference consequently confined its efforts
almost entirely to drawing up a code of international laws--especially
those regulating the actual conduct of war--known as "the Hague
Conventions." They contain rules about the laying of submarine mines,
the treatment of prisoners, the bombardment of towns, and the rights of
neutrals in time of war; they forbid, for example, the use of poison or
of weapons causing unnecessary suffering. Even on these questions
Germany stood out against certain changes which would have made war
still more humane. But her delegates took part in framing the Hague
Conventions; and Germany, like all the other powers later engaged in the
Great War, accepted those conventions by formal treaty, thus binding
herself to observe them.
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