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Précis de cours, Civil Affairs Staff Centre, avril 1944

Précis de cours, Civil Affairs Staff Centre, avril 1944

1944-04 Cours Civil Affairs Staff Centre
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Ce document réunit deux précis de cours dactylographiés que Claude Saint-Léger a conservés parmi ses papiers personnels. Ils portent l'en-tête du Civil Affairs Staff Centre, l'organisme britannique chargé de former les officiers alliés aux fonctions d'administration civile des territoires libérés puis occupés. Datés de mai 1944, ils s'inscrivent dans les semaines qui précèdent le débarquement, alors que Claude, incorporé depuis novembre 1943 et affecté comme officier de liaison auprès des forces britanniques, se trouve en Angleterre. Rien n'indique s'il a personnellement suivi ces cours ou s'il en a simplement reçu les précis. Le premier, dû à E.J. Passant, traite de l'échec de la République de Weimar. Le second, de J.L. Brierly, porte sur la valeur du droit de la guerre.

Le contexte

Le Civil Affairs Staff Centre est mentionné dès novembre 1943 dans les débats du Parlement britannique, qui en donnent les effectifs d'encadrement : un brigadier et cinq lieutenants-colonels, rattachés à la Directorate for Civil Affairs. Il forme les officiers destinés aux futures administrations civiles, en Normandie d'abord, en Allemagne ensuite, dans le cadre plus large des services que met en place la direction des Affaires civiles sous l'autorité du War Office puis du SHAEF, constitué en février 1944. L'existence du centre en tant que tel n'apparaît nulle part ailleurs dans les papiers de Claude connus à ce jour : ce document en est, pour l'instant, la seule attestation.

Les deux sujets traités éclairent les deux facettes de la mission qui attend les officiers de liaison à partir de juin 1944. Le cours de Passant revient sur l'échec de la République de Weimar, un précédent que les planificateurs alliés étudient pour éviter d'en reproduire les erreurs lors de l'occupation de l'Allemagne. Celui de Brierly, professeur de droit international, rappelle les limites et la portée réelle du droit de la guerre, au moment où les armées s'apprêtent à occuper des territoires ennemis. Pour Claude, qui rejoindra en juin les missions de liaison administrative en Normandie avant d'être affecté dans la Somme puis dans le Nord à l'automne, ces deux précis forment un arrière-plan doctrinal cohérent avec ses fonctions à venir, sans qu'aucune pièce ne permette de savoir dans quelles circonstances il se les est procurés.

Dates repères, 1944

Cours sur l'Allemagne de Weimar

Précis dactylographié. Civil Affairs Staff Centre. Cours de E.J. Passant, M.A.

CIVIL AFFAIRS STAFF CENTRE

SYLLABUS OF LECTURES ON CONTEMPORARY GERMANY

Précis of 2nd Lecture by E.J. PASSANT M.A.

The Weimar Experiment and its failure (1919-1933)

1. The Versailles Treaty and its meaning to GERMANY:

The defeat of Deutschtum:

(a) Break-up of Austro-Hungarian Empire: prohibition of German-Austrian union.

(b) Victory of Slavs - POLAND, CZECHO-SLOVAKIA, YUGO-SLAVIA.

(c) Triumph of the West: FRANCE and ALSACE; BRITAIN and colonies and fleet; democratic principle of government accepted.

2. The Weimar System: outline of main provisions of constitution.

3. Failure to solve the problems of internal disunity outlined in Lecture 1.

(a) Multi-party governments, no stable majorities.

(b) Alliance of 'international' parties (Centre and Social-Democrats) especially in PRUSSIA.

(c) Ambiguous position of States (Laender).

(d) Dissatisfaction of both Left and Right.

4. The system in practice

(a) Alliance of Social-Democrats and Army to secure order: 'bourgeois' character of Social-Democrats: split between Socialists and Communists.

(b) Rapid decline of left-liberals.

(c) Recovery of conservative forces.

(d) The inflation and its effects on the middle classes.

(e) Success and failure of Stresemann's foreign policy.

(f) The great slump - 1929 onwards.

5. National-socialism as solution of both internal and external problems.

May 44
ILY

Cours sur le droit de la guerre

Précis dactylographié. Civil Affairs Staff Centre. Cours du professeur J.L. Brierly.

CIVIL AFFAIRS STAFF CENTRE

SUMMARY OF LECTURE ON

THE VALUE OF LAWS OF WAR

By Prof. J.L. BRIERLY.

1. The laws of war are one part of international law, and some notion of what international law as a whole counts for in the relations of states is desirable by way of introduction to them. For several reasons the facts about this are not generally known, and most people only hear of international law when it is broken. Hence they fail to realise that habitually it is observed. On the other hand its weakness is that it has never been able to control the major issues of international politics, especially the issue between peace and war, and consequently in relation to war its function has come to be limited to attempting to regulate the way in which it is carried on.

2. But is this a practicable aim? Only provided the rules of the law do not attempt to run counter to the essential nature of war, which is a contest for victory. The Hague Regulations point to this inevitable limitation when they are expressed to be inspired "by the desire to diminish the evils of war, as far as military requirements permit". There is ample evidence in the history of war that when these limits are exceeded laws of war are not observed.

3. Modern developments in the art of war have tended further to restrict the field within which laws of war are likely to be effective. And a further difficulty arises from the fact that methods of waging war are constantly changing, so that though the basic principle may be the same its application necessarily varies in different ages. But there remains none the less some scope for a principle which limits the permissible infliction of injury on the enemy to that which has a military value. The occupation of enemy territory is one of the occasions in war which best illustrates how such a principle can be applied.

4. But even if within these limits there is nothing logically absurd about laws of war, they still have to contend with the emotional obstacles that war generates, and if a nation adopts mere "frightfulness" as its policy in waging war law can do little to mitigate its barbarities. For the whole system of international law, including the laws of war, is based on the assumption that nations have certain standards of behaviour in common; if that assumption breaks down, the system is bound to break down with it. But we should remember that it is not only international law that Nazism has repudiated; it has repudiated law as such in the sense in which peoples of European civilisation have hitherto understood it.

5. The means which exist for the enforcement of the laws of war are the right to punish war criminals, and the right to take reprisals. But neither of these is an effective form of sanction so long as war is in process of being fought.

6. That part of the laws of war which deals with the relations between belligerents and neutrals raises considerations which have not been discussed in this lecture, which has been concerned only with the relations between the belligerents.

May 44
MP

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