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 entitled, must, subject to the assent 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 warship, the sick-bays shall be respected and spared as far as possible. The said sick-bays and the matériel 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 entitled 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 entitled 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 circumstances, 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 State 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 documents of identity 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, &c., 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 Commanders-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 The Signatory Powers shall take the necessary steps in order to bring the provisions of the present Convention to the knowledge of their naval forces, and especially of the members entitled thereunder to immunity, and to make them known to the public. Article 21 The Signatory Powers likewise undertake to enact or to propose to their Legislatures, if their criminal laws are inadequate, the measures necessary for checking in time of war individual acts of pillage and ill-treatment in respect to the sick and wounded in the fleet, as well as for punishing, as an unjustifiable adoption of naval or military marks, the unauthorized use of the distinctive marks mentioned in Article 5 by vessels not protected by the present Convention. They shall communicate to each other, through the Netherland Government, the enactments for preventing such acts at the latest within five years of the ratification of the present Convention. Article 22 In the case of operations of war between the land and sea forces of belligerents, the provisions of the present Convention are only applicable to the forces on board ship. Article 23 soon as The present Convention shall be ratified as soon possible. The ratifications shall be deposited at the Hague. The first deposit of ratifications shall be recorded in a Protocol signed by the Representatives of the Powers which take part therein and by the Netherland Minister for Foreign affairs. The subsequent deposits of ratifications shall be made by means of a written notification, addressed to the Netherland Government and accompanied by the instrument of ratification. A duly certified copy of the Protocol relating to the first deposit of ratifications, of the notifications mentioned in the preceding paragraph, as well as of the instruments of ratification, shall be immediately sent by the Netherland Government through the diplomatic channel to the Powers invited to the Second Peace Conference, as well as to the other Powers which have acceded to the Convention. The said Government shall, in the cases contemplated in the preceding paragraph, inform |