ABSTRACT
Local populations can survive a foreign military occupation only if the occupation army enforces discipline among the troops. Remarkably, the 1943 German military regulations went so far as to threaten with punishment the soldier who carried out such orders of his superiors that were in violation of the law. The monstrous behavior of German troops during World War II in Eastern and southeastern Europe shows that the military code is useless if the commanders do not bother to enforce it or deliberately disregard it. Fortunately, by 1914 Europe possessed a series of international conventions and agreements for the regulation and humanization of warfare and the protection of the wounded and prisoners of war. The aristocratic officers who commanded the armies of the eighteenth century formed an unofficial international class whose members were often related to each other and who had nothing but contempt for the "rabble" under their command.
