On 17/01/2015 02:10, Bob Taylor wrote:
> Harry R Jumpjet wrote:
>> I came across a reference to this bureau some time ago, and discovered
>> that the bureau was set up under the Geneva Convention. It followed a
>> precedent estabished in WW One. There is a mechanism whereby enemy
>> forces can complan that their opponents are not "playing the game",
>> and can make a compant. This is done through a neutral power , and a
>> good example of this is the complaint made in WW One against Germany
>> regarding the use of the "saw-back" bayonet by Imperial German trops.
>> The Bayonet was sunsequently withdrawn from use. In the Second EWorld
>> War, complaints usually referred to atrocities being committed against
>> enemy combatants or prisoners of war. I hope that this post does not
>> result in a gegeral argument about German and/or Russian behaviour in
>> the war - I am simply makig the point that the bureau existed, and
>> investigated allegations of war crimes committed by and against
>> members of the German armed forces.
>>
>> There is an interesting book - see the following internet references:
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wehrmacht_War_Crimes_Bureau,_1939-1945
>>
>> http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=7362616
>>
>>
>> Finally, was it not Churchill who said that if you have to kill a man,
>> it costs nothing to be polite?
>>
> He may have, but as I recall he said something similar when running the
> Japanese ambassador out of London on a rail.
On 8 December 1941, the government of the United Kingdom declared war on
the Empire of Japan, following the Japanese attacks on Malaya, Singapore
and Hong Kong. The British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs,
Anthony Eden, was in transit to Moscow at the time, so Prime Minister
Winston Churchill was in charge of the Foreign Office. The text of his
letter to the Japanese Ambassador was as follows:
Sir,
On the evening of December 7th His Majesty's Government in the
United Kingdom learned that Japanese forces without previous warning
either in the form of a declaration of war or of an ultimatum with a
conditional declaration of war had attempted a landing on the coast of
Malaya and bombed Singapore and Hong Kong.
In view of these wanton acts of unprovoked aggression committed in
flagrant violation of International Law and particularly of Article I of
the Third Hague Convention relative to the opening of hostilities, to
which both Japan and the United Kingdom are parties, His Majesty's
Ambassador at Tokyo has been instructed to inform the Imperial Japanese
Government in the name of His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom
that a state of war exists between our two countries.
I have the honour to be, with high consideration,
Sir,
Your obedient servant,
Winston S. Churchill
Of the letter, Churchill later wrote: "Some people did not like this
ceremonial style. But after all when you have to kill a man it costs
nothing to be polite."
--
Moving Things In Stiil Pictures
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