At what point did civilians being targeted in war become unacceptable?

[Johanna]

@UDS

Well, it goes back to Augustine of Hippo, for that matter.

But Augustine could only write books and preach sermons, not enforce these ideas. The first time in history that not harming civilians was actually ordered and put into practice by commanders in chief using their executive authority was by Muhammad and Abu Bakr.

But I think the Western legal tradition which condemns the targetting of civilians can be traced, through Grotius, to Aquinas. You can find other thinkers before Aquinas who expressed similar views, but it’s not clear that we can trace our current thinking on this to them.

Aquinas studied works by Muslim philosophers and legal theorists like Averroës… I’m just sayin.

[tci707]

@UDS

Various excuses might be offered, depending on circumstances and context.

There seems to have been a convention in medieval and early modern times that, if you besieged a castle or a fortified city and the they surrendered to you, you had to spare them – you might loot, but you mustn’t kill – whereas if they held out against you and had to be taken by force, they you could put them all to the sword. The argument, presumably, was that all those within were joined the common enterprise of resisting your advance, and so lost noncombatant status. Alternatively, people would reason that their own troops had been outraged by the recalcitrance of the besieged, and by the needless bloodshed and suffering caused by their holding out, and could not be restrained from exacting revenge when the besieged city finally fell, and this was regrettable but what could you do?

In the wars of religion actions against civilians were common because what you were really fighting against was heresy, and when it comes to fighting against abstract ideas, well, you didn’t have to carry a pike to be a heretic. (Echoes here of The War On Terror, but the less said about that the better.)

It’s only much later that you have the concepts of economic war and total war, and the notion – much employed in the twentieth century to justify all kinds of horrible things – that pretty well everybody is supporting the enemies’ war effort, one way or another. This is of course an excuse claimed by terrorist groups, but not just by terrorist groups.

My wild guess is that the best time to be a civilian in wartime was probably the eighteenth and early nineteenth century. By this time armies are becoming increasingly professional and disciplined, and military strategy is being approach scientifically. Civilians might suffer looting and they might suffer the depredations of undisciplined or demoralised troops or deserters and of course they could have the enemy billeted on them, and they might be killed if they resisted any of these thing, but I suspect focussed strategies directed at terrorising or slaughtering largely noncombatant populations were comparatively rare – certainly compared with the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

In medieval times when a army was besieging a castle or a small village, I imagine it was a more democratic process on whether or not to to fight or surrender, then it is today. Most people have no say at all in wars there country’s partake in. For example over 90% of Americans opposed Americas war in Libya but obama went ahead and did it anyway.

[UDS]

@tci707

In medieval times when a army was besieging a castle or a small village, I imagine it was a more democratic process on whether or not to to fight or surrender, then it is today. Most people have no say at all in wars there country’s partake in. For example over 90% of Americans opposed Americas war in Libya but obama went ahead and did it anyway.

Maybe, maybe not.

I suspect that in medieval times decisions like this were mostly made by a fairly small group at the top of the pecking order, and everyone else went along with them because it never occurred to them that they ought to be consulted, or to have a say.

Conversely, while a democratically-elected leader may make an unpopular decison, the people have given him legal authority and a democratic mandate to make that decision, and the financial and material tools with which to implement it, and there are various avenues open to them and to their other representatives if they disapprove of the decision. I have no doubt that somebody directly affected by the decision, and acutely aggreived by it, will have no difficultly in working this up into a “they are all responsible!” attitude.