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War is so awful that it makes us cynical about the possibility of restraint, and then it is so much worse that it makes us indignant at the absence of restraint. Our cynicism testifies to the defectiveness of the war convention, and our indignation to its reality and strength. No century [compared to the twentieth century] has had better norms and worse realities. Apparently the phrase “international humanitarian law” (IHL) was first used by the ICRC in 1953. In this chapter I will first show that there remains a lack of clarity about the precise scope of IHL. Then I will show that there is often confusion about its relation to international human rights law (HRL). Finally I will show that in relation to IHL the ICRC exercises three roles by whatever name: helping to develop the law, helping to disseminate the principles and rules of the law, and helping to apply the law. The central point of this chapter is not to provide a legal commentary on the specifics of IHL, but rather to discuss its practical relevance to victims of conflicts through the efforts of the ICRC. A theme running throughout this chapter is that one can overemphasize IHL as a technical legal subject compared to humanitarian diplomacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ICRC has always taken care not to go beyond the limits of that which risked alienating the good will of states to the detriment of tasks which they gave to it. The foundations of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, and particularly the ICRC's humanitarian protection, are to be found in Calvinistic Geneva in the nineteenth century. What became the ICRC got its start between 1859 and 1869. Decisions during this time greatly shaped not just the ICRC and the larger Red Cross Movement, but the entire “Red Cross” approach to peace and war, to public authorities, and to scope and styles of Red Cross humanitarian action. Thereafter the ICRC remained enormously influential on these subjects. It is a very complicated matter as to whether victims of war and victims of other struggles for power would have fared better in subsequent years through different decisions. What is clear is that the ICRC emerged as an important humanitarian actor in conflict situations and as “guardian” of a much revered – and much violated – international humanitarian law (IHL). The organization's provision of humanitarian relief, its visits to detainees, its efforts to restore family contacts, and its legal development work became fixtures of “man made” conflicts – first in Europe and then in the rest of the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reflecting upon the course of the Reformation in 1557, Heinrich Bullinger, successor to Zwingli and leader of the reformed church in Switzerland from 1532 until 1575, presented a gloomy and pessimistic assessment. God had revealed his truth to the German nation in these times and his people had proved themselves ungrateful. The immediate consequence of this infidelity, Bullinger believed, were the dreadful wars between the Emperor and the Protestants ravaging Europe. France, Germany and Italy were engulfed in battles, and Swiss soldiers, despite the persistent opposition of the reform movement to mercenary service, continued to die on foreign territory. Within the Confederation the Protestant cities of Basle and Berne pursued their protracted quarrels with Calvin's Geneva over matters of doctrine and church polity, whilst the Catholics, strengthened by the Council of Trent, were everywhere resurgent. The despair of the aging reformer at his desk in Zurich accurately reflects the general disappointment among Swiss reformers that the soaring hopes of the first generation had not been fulfilled. The Reformation had not, as Zwingli had originally anticipated, culminated in a unified alliance of evangelical states under the leadership of Zurich. Instead half the Confederation remained defiantly loyal to Catholicism, and even those states which had eventually followed Zurich into the Protestant camp pursued their own models of reform with a stubborn and, at times, cantankerous independence. Any survey of the Reformation in Switzerland should reflect this enduring diversity, a phenomenon which has to some extent been masked by the subsequent success of Zurich and Geneva in impressing their reforming ideals on a wider European movement later in the century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

CHARACTER AND AIMS Friedrich Carl (1652–98) came to power as regent of Württemberg as a result of the unexpected death of his elder brother, Duke Wilhelm Ludwig, after a reign of a mere three years (1674–7). His dual role as ‘Duke Administrator’ and prince of the junior Winnenthal line of the family was to impart special characteristics to his regency. On the one hand, he realised that his nephew Eberhard Ludwig would one day become reigning duke and he would once again he reduced to the relative obscurity of prince of a junior line. He therefore tried to extract maximum advantage for himself and his own sons while his power lasted. On the other hand, owing to the length of his rule – Eberhard Ludwig was scarcely a year old when Friedrich Carl became regent on 27 November 1677 and under Württemberg law could not become duke before his eighteenth birthday in 1694 – he developed attributes of a reigning duke. He therefore interfered in the internal structure of the duchy to a far greater extent than the indecisive regents of the period 1737–44, from whom he differed radically in both youth and character. Although nominally obliged to share power with the privy council and with Eberhard Ludwig's mother, the pious Magdalene Sibylle (1652–1712), he soon seized the reins of government for himself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

THE SOLDIER TRADE IN THE LITERATURE The preceding two chapters have established that if a prince were to achieve his dynastic and political aims, he required a large army and a full treasury. To secure these he needed large revenues. If his existing revenues were inadequate, or he was unable to exercise full control over them, he was forced to look for outside assistance. The most important and politically significant form of such assistance was the subsidy treaty. Subsidy treaties originated in the ‘pensions’ paid by the king of France in the late fifteenth century to the leaders of the Swiss cantons in return for mercenaries for his army. From then on, the treaties developed a number of different forms, but always retained the same basic characteristic – one party provided military assistance in return for financial or political advantage from the other. This has been one of the most misunderstood areas of early modern international relations. Traditionally, the subsidy treaties of these princes have been regarded as a Soldatenhandel, whereby the princes sold their subjects to foreign powers to ‘increase their revenues and satisfy their [desire for] luxury’. This interpretation has profoundly influenced the historical view of the lesser German princes and their role within the Reich and the European states system. Only recently has it begun to be revised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By the early fourteenth century the period of medieval economic growth was over; the population of Europe reached its peak at about this time, and the spatial pattern of cities was to develop no farther before the nineteenth century. POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY The political map of Europe had assumed a form which, with minor changes, it was to retain into modern times. Only in the Balkan peninsula, where the Byzantine empire was clinging desperately to its last foothold, were major changes still to come. In most of Europe political control was becoming more centralized, and kingship more absolute. Feudalism, as a mode of government, was weakening, though its outward symbols were as conspicuous as ever. Only in eastern Europe and Russia were feudal relationships tending to strengthen. In the Spanish peninsula the southward advance of the Christian states had reduced the Moorish kingdom of Granada to the Sierra Nevada and neighboring coastlands. To the north, Castile, having absorbed Léon and other petty states, reached from the Biscay coast in the north to the Strait of Gibraltar (Fig. 6.1). It dominated the Meseta, while around its periphery lay Navarre and Gascony, Aragon and Portugal. Only Castile still had a boundary with the Moors and still continued its centuries-old crusade against them. Portugal and Aragon were casting their eyes beyond the seas and were beginning that commercial expansion which was to take them to Asia and the New World. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The centuries from the early ninth to the early fourteenth saw the rise and splendor of medieval civilization. They saw also the emergence of a political organization of the land which underwent little fundamental change before the end of the eighteenth century: an increase in population which stretched to its limits the agricultural resources of Europe, and the development of a pattern of cities, that remained almost unaltered until the Industrial Revolution. Not until the nineteenth century do we encounter again a period of comparable development and change. THE INVASIONS The period began with another wave of invaders from beyond the core areas of western and central Europe. These came from Scandinavia, westward from the fjords of Norway and the plains of Denmark to the British Isles and France, eastward from Sweden to the shores of Russia and overland to the Black Sea (Fig. 5.1). The first of these sea raiders reached the shores of western Europe before the death of Charlemagne; the last landed on those of northern Britain two and a half centuries later. Their raids were but an episode in European history, but they had, locally at least, far-reaching consequences. The sudden explosion of Nordic peoples in the ninth century is as enigmatic as that of the Tartar peoples during previous centuries. It has been attributed to political struggles within Scandinavia, to overpopulation, and to environmental change in this climatically marginal land. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]