Homecoming of Douglas Haig - 19th December 1918

[pagius]

Edited 19 December , 2018 by pagius
spelling

[Heid the Ba]

Nice photo.  Would I be right in assuming that had Haig travelled on a hospital ship during the war that would have been in breach of the Geneva Conventions?

[Marilyne]

Interesting question.

 

If we go back to the definition: a hopsital ship, the names of which have to be given to the parties of a conflict, is a ship that was built, converted, or equipped specially or solely with a view to assisting, treating, and transporting the wounded, sick, and shipwrecked. 

It may not be attacked or captured and must be respected and protected. The religious and medical personnel and crew of hospital ships have a right to the same protection.

In 1914-18, ther main source would have been the Geneva Convention of 1906, in which Art 7 provides that "The protection due to sanitary formations and establishments ceases if they are used to commit acts injurious to the enemy."

The question here is what is an act "injurious to the enemy"... transporting troops and ammunition certainly is. Nowadays, hospital ships are not allowed to use crypto radio means.

Now is the transporting of the Commander in Chief of a belligerent party considered "injurious to the enemy?"

I'd tend to say yes but...

 

I need my documentation and my commentaries to the conventions. I think I have a case somewhere analuysing a situation like that... please allow me a recess of 48hours to get home and dive into my papers !!

 

M.

[michaeldr]

It does seem quite likely that DH was accompanied by Keyes and stayed overnight at Dover

There was a diner at Dover which included (as well as Keyes) DH, Birdwood, Byng, Boyle & Godfrey

Keyes wrote to Sir Ian Hamilton that Gallipoli had been amongst the topics discussed

 

[details from The Keyes Papers 1914-1918]

[Heid the Ba]

39 minutes ago, Marilyne said:

I need my documentation and my commentaries to the conventions. I think I have a case somewhere analuysing a situation like that... please allow me a recess of 48hours to get home and dive into my papers !!

 

M.

Take as long as you like; my view is that Haig would be regarded the same as any other combatant.

[Skipman]

Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette - Thursday 19 December 1918

 

In glorious weather Field-Marshal Sir D Haig arrived at Dover this morning at 10.15, en route to London. The Commander-in-Chief of the British Armies in France had a brilliant naval and military reception at the famous southern port. He was also greeted by tens of thousands of people on the sea front, along which he drove with the Mayor of Dover (Mr Sanky), on his way to the Admiralty Pier, where he received a civic welcome, and subsequently entrained for the Metropolis. The gallant Field-Marshal boarded the Belgian hospital ship Jan Bredel at half-past-eight this morning, and reached the eastern arm of Dover Harbour at quarter past ten. He was escorted by destroyers, and well out to sea the special boat was met by six coastal motor boats, seaplanes and aeroplanes. When the vessel drew alongside Field-Marshal Haig was seen on the bridge standing next to Sir Roger Keyes, surrounded by his Generals........"

 

https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000289/19181219/104/0006

 

Edit 13.01 It should perhaps read " Jan Breydel. "

 

Mike

Edited 19 December , 2018 by Skipman

[Ron Clifton]

The question of the use of a hospital ship may be purely academic, since the journey took place after the signing of the Armistice. An attack on any ship carrying Haig would have been in breach of the Armistice conditions, and the Germans would have paid heavily for it at the Peace Conference.

 

Ron

[Skipman]

2 minutes ago, Ron Clifton said:

The question of the use of a hospital ship may be purely academic, since the journey took place after the signing of the Armistice.

 

Ron

 

Exactly.

 

Mike

[PhilB]

Post 2 did specify "during the war".

It's odd that a wounded man, or anyone assisting him while in the front line, is fair game, but he immediately becomes out of bounds when taken onto a hospital ship. Militarily speaking, he may be available in the future just as a man in rest billets behind the line would be?

[charlie962]

59 minutes ago, PhilB said:

but he immediately becomes out of bounds when taken onto a hospital

It makes war a civilised affair.

[Skipman]

A report in the Liverpool Echo adds this "The Channel was not in it's pleasantest mood, and the crossing was anything but a good one; so much so that the plan of crossing by the torpedo boat Termagent was abandoned, and the Jan Breydel substituted."

 

https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000271/19181219/041/0005

 

Mike

Edited 19 December , 2018 by Skipman

[PhilB]

1 hour ago, charlie962 said:

It makes war a civilised affair.

War may be a necessity but is it ever civilised?

[Heid the Ba]

2 hours ago, PhilB said:

Post 2 did specify "during the war".

Indeed, it was a purely academic question.

2 hours ago, PhilB said:

It's odd that a wounded man, or anyone assisting him while in the front line, is fair game, but he immediately becomes out of bounds when taken onto a hospital ship. Militarily speaking, he may be available in the future just as a man in rest billets behind the line would be?

It is odd, but you can notify the enemy of the locations of hospitals but stretcher bearers just have to take their chances even if not deliberately targeted. 

[Bordercollie]

1 hour ago, Heid the Ba said:

Indeed, it was a purely academic question.

It is odd, but you can notify the enemy of the locations of hospitals but stretcher bearers just have to take their chances even if not deliberately targeted. 

 

I am not sure that stretcher bearers saw themselves as fair game. This from the diary of Percy Micklewright a stretcher bearer with 129th Field Ambulance concerning his experiences during the 38th Welsh Division's attack on Mametz Wood.

 

"Word came down that there were some wounded fellows lying just outside the wood and they had not been bandaged up. Away went one of our officers (Lieut. Jones) to attend to them. He had just reached the outskirts of the wood when he was badly wounded, being sniped whilst bandaging up a wounded man. It was a rotten shame for the Germans could plainly see his Red Cross on his sleeve, but we found out afterwards that they did not respect the Red Cross, for all the time we were carrying the wounded in their machine guns were continually to trying to pot us." 

Edited 19 December , 2018 by Bordercollie
missing apostrophe!

[CorporalPunishment]

5 hours ago, Heid the Ba said:

Nice photo.  Would I be right in assuming that had Haig travelled on a hospital ship during the war that would have been in breach of the Geneva Conventions?

In December 1918 he did travel on a hospital ship during the war. A state of war still existed at the time and did so until the Treaty of Versailles in June 1919. The rules of the Geneva Convention still applied. Pete.

[Heid the Ba]

1 hour ago, CorporalPunishment said:

In December 1918 he did travel on a hospital ship during the war. A state of war still existed at the time and did so until the Treaty of Versailles in June 1919. The rules of the Geneva Convention still applied. Pete.

That did occur to me after I posted.

[pagius]

Thanks for all your interesting comments.   I looked this up yesterday because I'm blogging (for my wider family interest) the letters from a g-aunt to her fiancee Capt Agius ,still at Douai as  Commandant of the Reception Camp ,  describing life in London in the weeks after the Armistice.   On the 19th she wrote ..."… I don’t suppose we will be able to move outside as [Field Marshal] Haig arrives at Charing Cross and you know what the crowd will be like. Last night it was terrible coming home. I thought we should never arrive or be killed in the crush."   

 

http://agiusww1.com/2018/12/19/19th-december-1918/

 

Her account of being in London on 11th November is particularly interesting...

 

http://agiusww1.com/2018/11/11/11th-november-1918/

Edited 20 December , 2018 by pagius

[Marilyne]

Good morning, 

 

I dived into my books and can only confirm what I said earlier... 

We indeed had the conversation one day with some of my students, in a fictive case where a general hitched a ride home on an ambulance returning to home base in order to be on time for the birthday of his wife. it was an interesting discussion of which just a few notes remain, half of which I can't even read anymore, but... the principles remain. 

 

as far as today's law is concerned, the Geneva Conventions of 1949 clealy state that hospital ships are considered sanitary installations and enjoy special protection. this means they cannot be attakced, pending they are white and bearing the Red Cross visibly and on condition that their names and descriptions  have been notified to the belligerants prior to employment. protection ceases, asa stated in Art 21 of GC I if "they are used to commit, outside their humanitarian duties, acts harmful to the enemy." This does not mean that the personnel on board is not allowed to carry sidearms... commmon error: they are allowed to be armed for the maintenance of order, for their own defence and that of the sick they are transporting. 

So I think we can safdely assume that transporting a combattant on a hospital ship might be in violation of the basic principles and "an act harmful to the enemy". 

Less detailed, but the principles in the 1949 GC are those laid down in the GC of 1906. 

The Hagues Rules for war on Land (H IV R) of 1907 take this very easily; Chapter III: "Sick and wounded" just has one article saying "this is handled by the Geneva Convention"... easy.

 

So the question now: was Douglas Haig a combattant? 

the reference today is GC III art 4 but it took over the definition of H IV R: 

Art 1: to be a "combattant" means: 

1. To be commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
2. To have a fixed distinctive emblem recognizable at a distance;
3. To carry arms openly; and
4. To conduct their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.

in the case of Douglas Haig as C-in-C of the BEF, all four questions can be answeres with yes: 1: his boss was the government, 2: his uniform; 3: one can consider that in wartime, he'd at least carry a sidearm; 4: this goes without saying (or is another debate) ... so YES, Douglas Haig was a combattant. 

This means that, had DH taken a hospital ship back to England during the war and had then enemy somehow gotten wind of that, they could have, legally, attacked the ship and taken the C-in C as POW. So it's not really a case of violating the rules of war, but more one of putting a ship in danger by taking away it's protection. The ship would have been a lawful objective. 

 

Concerning the question if in december 1918 the parties were still at war... 

the applicability of the various conventions is not always easy... last wednesday I annoyed a student in logistics with this, hearing him talk about "suspect civilans" and "ROE" and "POW" in the same sentence, I asked him the basic FIRST and foremost question: what is the qualification of your conflict??? Last question he was expecting at an evaluation in Logistics but anyway... the question is paramount. Also here. 

H IV R refers to the first Hague Regulations of 1899, aimed to  "serve as general rules of conduct for belligerents in their relations with each other and with populations"

The provisions contained in the Regulations are, as mentioned in Article I, "only binding on the Contracting Powers, in case of war between two or more of them." 

There is no mention in H IV R about the definition of "war". There is a definition of the Armistice, as "suspending military operations by military agreement" ... but that could (or not ... subject to debate) define "war". The conflict, from a political point orf view, might still exist, but I would argue that there was no de facto war going on at that time. Had the ship, hospital or not, been attacked at that moment, it would have been a violation of the Armistice agreement under Art 36 of the Regulations. 

 

And last but not least: of course both Germany and the United Kingdom were parties to the treaties. 

 

Summing up: YES, had DH taken a hospital ship during the conduct of hostilities to travel to and from the UK, he would have taken away the protection of the ship. but in this case, NO, there was no war going on anymore so the choice of ship did not really matter anymore. 

 

I rest my case... 

 

Marilyne

 

 

[PhilB]

40 minutes ago, Marilyne said:

 

Summing up:  in this case, NO, there was no war going on anymore so the choice of ship did not really matter anymore. 

 

I rest my case... 

 

Marilyne

 

 

Can we be sure that hostilities had ceased everywhere in the world?

[Steven Broomfield]

5 minutes ago, PhilB said:

Can we be sure that hostilities had ceased everywhere in the world?

 

Well, they had insofar as the English Channel was concerned so perhaps your question is a little metaphysical.

[Ron Clifton]

Maryline has argued my case more plausiibly than I did, especially quoting chapter and verse that attacking the ship would have been a breach of the Armistice conditions. And my reply to PhilB is that the last "cessation of hostilities" as far as the Germans were concerned was the surrender of von Lettow-Vorbeck's forces in East Africa, which took place on 25 November.

 

It might also be relevant that Haig was coming home. I doubt that a journey in that direction could be considered "injurious to an enemy".However, all this could have been avoided if we could establish whether Haig was actually wounded (wrist strain through excessive hand-shaking?) or ill (excessive consumption of the product of his family business?) and therefore a legitimate traveller on a hospital ship.

 

Ron

[Marilyne]

1 hour ago, PhilB said:

Can we be sure that hostilities had ceased everywhere in the world?

 

on the Western front, between UK and Germany as belligerent countries and thus parties to the treaty, yes: they had ceased. 

That's what relevant here. 

 

M.

[Ralph Currell]

From around April 1917 onward, the Jan Breydel was not a hospital ship, but an ambulance transport.  The following brief description comes from vol. 3 of 'The Merchant Navy' by Archibald Hurd:

 

"Ambulance trans­ports were vessels fitted to carry invalids and wounded, but, though painted a distinctive grey, they ran as ordin­ary troop transports and, as distinct from hospital ships, could claim no immunity from attack. They were ex­posed to the same risks from unrestricted submarine warfare as were the ordinary merchant vessels."

 

So I suspect it would have been perfectly legal for Haig to travel on such a ship even during wartime.

 

Regards,

   Ralph

Edited 22 May , 2019 by Ralph Currell