The Australian Army Medical Corps in Egypt Part 27

The Governments undertake not to use these ships for any military purpose.

Such vessels must in no wise hamper the movements of the combatants.

During and after an engagement they will act at their own risk and peril.

The belligerents shall have the right to control and search them; they may refuse to help them, order them off, make them take a certain course, and put a Commissioner on board; they may even detain them, if the situation is such as to require it.

The belligerents shall, as far as possible, enter in the log of the hospital-ships the orders which they give them.

_Article 5_

Military hospital-ships shall be distinguished by being painted white outside with a horizontal band of green about a metre and a half in breadth.

The ships mentioned in Articles 2 and 3 shall be distinguished by being painted white outside with a horizontal band of red about a metre and a half in breadth.

The boats of the said ships, as also small craft which may be used for hospital work, shall be distinguished by similar painting.

All hospital-ships shall make themselves known by hoisting, with their national flag, the white flag with a red cross provided by the Geneva Convention, and further, if they belong to a neutral State, by flying at the mainmast the national flag of the belligerent under whose orders they are placed.

Hospital-ships which are detained under Article 4 by the enemy must haul down the national flag of the belligerent to whom they belong.

The ships and boats above mentioned which wish to ensure by night the freedom from interference to which they are ent.i.tled, must, subject to the a.s.sent of the belligerent they are accompanying, take the necessary measures to render their special painting sufficiently plain.

_Article 6_

The distinguishing signs referred to in Article 5 shall only be used, whether in peace or war, for protecting or indicating the ships therein mentioned.

_Article 7_

In the case of a fight on board a war-ship, the sick-bays shall be respected and spared as far as possible.

The said sick-bays and the _materiel_ belonging to them remain subject to the laws of war; they cannot, however, be used for any purpose other than that for which they were originally intended, so long as they are required for the sick and wounded.

The commander into whose power they have fallen may, however, if the military situation requires it, apply them to other purposes, after seeing that the sick and wounded on board are properly provided for.

_Article 8_

Hospital-ships and sick-bays of vessels are no longer ent.i.tled to protection if they are employed for the purpose of injuring the enemy.

The fact of the staff of the said ships and sick-bays being armed for maintaining order and for defending the sick and wounded, and the presence of wireless telegraphy apparatus on board, are not sufficient reasons for withdrawing protection.

_Article 9_

Belligerents may appeal to the charity of the commanders of neutral merchant-ships, yachts, or boats to take the sick and wounded on board and tend them.

Vessels responding to this appeal, and also vessels which may have of their own accord rescued sick, wounded, or shipwrecked men, shall enjoy special protection and certain immunities. In no case may they be captured for the sole reason of having such persons on board; but, subject to any undertaking that may have been given to them, they remain liable to capture for any violations of neutrality they may have committed.

_Article 10_

The religious, medical, and hospital staff of any captured ship is inviolable, and its members may not be made prisoners of war. On leaving the ship they are ent.i.tled to remove their own private belongings and surgical instruments.

They shall continue to discharge their duties so far as necessary, and can afterwards leave, when the Commander-in-Chief considers it permissible.

Belligerents must guarantee to the said staff, while in their hands, the same allowances and pay as are given to the staff of corresponding rank in their own navy.

_Article 11_

Sick or wounded sailors, soldiers on board, or other persons officially attached to fleets or armies, whatever their nationality, shall be respected and tended by the captors.

_Article 12_

Any war-ship belonging to a belligerent may demand the surrender of sick, wounded, or shipwrecked men on board military hospital-ships, hospital-ships belonging to relief societies or to private individuals, merchant-ships, yachts, or boats, whatever the nationality of such vessels.

_Article 13_

If sick, wounded, or shipwrecked persons are taken on board a neutral war-ship, precaution must be taken, so far as possible, that they do not again take part in the operations of the war.

_Article 14_

The sick, wounded, or shipwrecked of one of the belligerents who fall into the power of the other belligerent are prisoners of war. The captor must decide, according to circ.u.mstances, whether to keep them, send them to a port of his own country, to a neutral port, or even to an enemy port. In this last case, prisoners thus repatriated may not serve again while the war lasts.

_Article 15_

The sick, wounded, or shipwrecked, who are landed at a neutral port with the consent of the local authorities, must, in default of arrangement to the contrary between the neutral State and the belligerent States, be guarded by the neutral States so as to prevent them from again taking part in the operations of the war.

The expenses of tending them in hospital and interning them shall be borne by the State to which the shipwrecked, sick, or wounded persons belong.

_Article 16_

After every engagement, the two belligerents shall, so far as military interests permit, take steps to look for the sick, wounded, and shipwrecked, and to protect them, as well as the dead, against pillage and improper treatment.

They shall see that the burial, whether by land or sea, or cremation of the dead shall be preceded by a careful examination of the corpse.

_Article 17_

Each belligerent shall send, as early as possible, the military marks or doc.u.ments of ident.i.ty found on the dead and a list of the names of the sick and wounded picked up by him to the authorities of their country, navy, or army.

The belligerents shall keep each other informed as to internments and transfers as well as to the admissions into hospital and deaths which have occurred among the sick and wounded in their hands. They shall collect all the objects of personal use, valuables, letters, etc., which may be found in the captured ships, or which may have been left by the sick or wounded who died in hospital, in order to have them forwarded to the persons concerned by the authorities of their own country.

_Article 18_

The provisions of the present Convention do not apply except between Contracting Powers, and then only if all the belligerents are parties to the Convention.

_Article 19_

The Commander-in-Chief of the belligerent fleets shall give detailed directions for carrying out the preceding Articles and for meeting cases not therein provided for, in accordance with the instructions of their respective Governments and in conformity with the general principles of the present Convention.

_Article 20_