cannot justify everything. Some
enacted rules about the conduct of war are, indeed, framed with such
latitude as to allow scope for the operation of _Kriegsraeson_. But most
of them do not leave it any scope, and they may not remain unobserved
even if _Kriegsraeson_ were to make it desirable. It must be admitted
that the general principle of the law of nations, that such acts as are
absolutely necessary for self-preservation may be excused even though
illegal, is applicable to the law of war also. And, further, in the
exercise of justified reprisals, many enacted rules of war can be set
aside. But mere _Kriegsraeson_ never extends so far as to dispense with
enacted rules of war. Nevertheless numerous well-reputed German authors
teach the contrary, and even those who perceive the falsity of this
doctrine still retain the old saying and identify _Kriegsraeson_ with the
narrower idea of military necessity. If we are to arrive at clearness,
if possible abuses are not to receive in advance the sheltering
protection of law, the maxim '_Kriegsraeson geht vor Kriegsmanier_' must
disappear from the science of international law. It has lost its meaning
and has become an empty but dangerous phrase.

[Sidenote: The doctrine of Rousseau concerning war.]

72. My second example is taken from the use to which an assertion of
Rousseau is commonly put. In his _Contrat Social_, Bk. I, ch. iv, is the
following passage: 'War, then, is not a relation of man to man, but a
relation of states in which private persons are enemies only
accidentally; not as men nor even as citizens, but as soldiers; not as
members of their country, but as its defenders. In a word, each state
can only have as enemies other states and not men; seeing that no true
relation can exist between things of different natures.'

It is in this assertion of Rousseau that a basis is found for a quite
common doctrine to the effect that war is a relation only between the
belligerent states and their contending forces. See how much else has
been deduced from this principle and demanded on the strength of it!
That blockade is only permissible in the case of naval ports and
fortified coast-towns, and not in the case of other ports and places.
That breach of blockade is as little punishable as carriage of
contraband, seeing that it is but a commercial act of peaceable
individuals, it being immaterial whether they are subjects of a neutral
power or of the enemy. That the capture