Page 110 - Conflitti Militari e Popolazioni Civili - Tomo I

110 XXXIV Congresso della CommIssIone InternazIonale dI storIa mIlItare • CIHm

its origin, as a relation which the parties, may set up if they choose» − wrote an English jurist
in 1880 − «and to bury itself only in regulating the effect of the relation». Still in 1915,
17
Benedetto Croce wrote that «whether the war breaks or not, it is as little moral or immoral as
an earthquake» citizens had no other «moral duty than to deploy ... to defend the fatherland»,
[and] only «a false ideology, a sophism of petty literary people could try to surrogate such
simple and severe concepts with the ideology of right and wrong, just and unjust war».
18
On the turn of the 18 and 19 centuries, the French revolution gave wars a totalitarian na-
th
th
ture again, with the levée en masse and Napoleonic strategy anchored on decisive open-field
battles, and ideological, through declaring a revolutionary crusade. «We must declare war
to the Kings and peace to Nations!», cried Merlin de Thionville, member of the legislative
assembly, on the occasion of the declaration of war on 20 April 1792; «peace to hamlets,
th
war to castles!», wrote Condorcet, philosopher and scientist. . However, such declarations
19
did not lead to sparing populations, on the contrary, revolutionary war triggered the civil war
all around France (reaching its apex in Vandea) and in invaded countries, where the French
army found allies but above all opponents, namely Catholic and monarchist loyalists . this
20
became a pattern that repeated itself during the Second World War, featuring collaboration-
ists and Anti-Nazi partisans and would have repeated itself, if the Cold War became hot
and Soviet armies invaded Western Europe, where they would fellow-travellers as well as
anti-communist combatants. Sometimes in the past Sovereigns had supported rebels against
Princes with whom they were at war, but they did that with moral scruples and without any
ideological connotations . After 1815, dynastic and/or nationalistic loyalty to one’s State
21
(«With God, for King and Fatherland», the Prussian motto of Landwehr, can be taken as a
conservative response to the revolutionary «nation armée») lead to consider simply as traitors
those who sided with the enemy . Nazi-Fascist and Communist «Internationals» brought to
22
the fore the problem of the «double loyalty», to one’s State or to one’s ideology. The problem
if a rebel, a partisan or a guerrilla fighter is fully justified as a legitimate combatant cannot be
solved in pure legal terms: «a regulation of the partisan question is legally impossible» and in
any case «a modern partisan does expect neither rights nor pity from the enemy» .
23
From 1815 till 1914, the international system was mainly ruled by the «concert of Eu-

17 Quoted in J. Keegan, A History of Warfare, London, 1993, p. 383.
18 B. Croce, Pagine sparse, Second series, Pagine sulla guerra, collected by G. Castellano, Naples, 1919, pp.
86-87.
19 J. Tulard-J.-F. Fayard-A. Fierro, Histoire et dictionnaire de la Révolution française, Paris, 1987, pp. 91-92.
20 For an introduction to these revolts at a european level see J. Godechot, La contre-révolution: doctrine et
action: 1789-1804, Paris, 1961; as regards Italy, the best and most thorough work is M. Viglione, Rivolte
dimenticate. Le insorgenze degli italiani dalle origini al 1815, Rome, 1999..
21 See e. luard, The Balance of Power. The System of International Relations, 1648-1815, london, 1992, pp.
125-126. As for diplomatic practice, see also M. S. Anderson, The Rise of Modern Diplomacy 1450-1919,
New York, 1993.
22 «Loyalty to the Crown was always to some degree contractual: an evil prince could be disowned, allegiance
could be renounced or limited. But how could this be done with a Nation which was simply you and your
own general will?» (M. Howard, The causes of wars and other essays, London, 1983, p. 26).
23 C. Schmitt, Teoria del partigiano. Integrazione al concetto del politico, Milan, 2005 [1 ed., Berlin, 1963],
st
pp. 53 and 20-21.