Holland, Thomas Erskine: The Laws of War on Land (1908)

A code of land warfare. Thomas Erskine Holland [1835-1926] analyzed the proceedings of the international conventions held at St. Petersburg in 1868, Geneva in 1906 and the Hague in 1899 and 1907. He found that they provided enough common material to create a code of land warfare, so he synthesized the texts of these conventions into a code containing 140 numbered articles divided into five sections. Each article is annotated with references to the conventions. When a clear ruling does not exist Holland offers his own based on precedents derived from internationally recognized authorities, such as Bynkershoek and Lieber. Compact, clearly written and well-organized, this work was a standard authority during the First World War. Still cited today, it is also a primary source for the study of the law of land warfare from mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries.